The Latter-day Saints: Joseph Smith, Scripture and History

The Latter-day Saint movement, often called Mormonism, is a Christian restorationist tradition founded by Joseph Smith (1805–1844) in upstate New York, who taught that God had restored the original church of Jesus Christ through new revelation and new scripture, above all the Book of Mormon, published in 1830. Its largest body, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, reports more than seventeen million members worldwide, and several smaller churches, including the Community of Christ, trace their origin to Smith. Latter-day Saints are known for their temples, missionary work, strong families, health code and a distinctive theology of human eternal progression.

Joseph Smith and the First Vision§

Joseph Smith Jr. was born in Vermont in 1805 into a poor farming family that moved to the region around Palmyra in western New York, an area of intense revivalism. Like many in that "burned-over district", described in Adventist and Restorationist Movements, he was troubled by the competing claims of the churches. According to his canonical account, written in 1838, he went into a grove near his home in the spring of 1820 to pray after reading James 1:5, which promises wisdom to those who ask God, and saw God the Father and Jesus Christ, who told him to join none of the churches. Earlier accounts, including one in his own hand from 1832, differ in details; historians and Latter-day Saint scholars discuss these differences openly.

In 1823, Smith said, an angel named Moroni appeared to him and revealed the location of golden plates buried in a hill nearby, containing a record of ancient inhabitants of the Americas. The Smith family, like many rural Americans of the time, also engaged in folk practices such as treasure-seeking with seer stones, and Joseph was hired as a treasure seer in the 1820s. The historian D. Michael Quinn explored this "magic world view" in a controversial study, and the church itself has since published photographs of a seer stone Smith used. The wider background of such practices is described in Folk Magic.

The Book of Mormon and Other Scriptures§

Smith said he received the plates in 1827 and translated them "by the gift and power of God", reportedly using seer stones placed in a hat as well as instruments he called the Urim and Thummim. The Book of Mormon was published in March 1830. It narrates the history of peoples who migrated from Jerusalem to the Americas around 600 BCE, their prophets and wars, and the visit of the resurrected Christ to them, ending with the destruction of the Nephites and the burial of the record by the prophet Moroni. Eleven witnesses signed published testimonies that they had seen the plates.

Latter-day Saints regard the Book of Mormon as scripture alongside the Bible, and many see it as fulfilling Ezekiel 37:16–17, on the joining of the "stick of Judah" and the "stick of Joseph". Most historians and archaeologists outside the church regard it as a nineteenth-century work and find no archaeological or genetic support for its peoples; Latter-day Saint scholars offer defences and alternative models. Terryl Givens has studied the book's role as a sign of continuing revelation.

The church also canonises the Doctrine and Covenants, a collection of Smith's revelations and later declarations, and the Pearl of Great Price, which includes the Book of Abraham. Smith presented the latter in 1842 as a translation of Egyptian papyri bought with mummies in 1835. Fragments of these papyri, rediscovered in 1966, were identified by Egyptologists as ordinary funerary texts, including a Book of Breathings, of the kind discussed in Ancient Egyptian Religion; the church's own published essays acknowledge this and propose that the translation came by revelation rather than literal rendering.

From Kirtland to Nauvoo: Temples and Persecution§

Smith organised the Church of Christ, later renamed, on 6 April 1830. The Saints gathered first at Kirtland, Ohio, where they dedicated their first temple in 1836, and in Missouri, where conflict with neighbours led to violence and, in 1838, Governor Lilburn Boggs's order that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the State". They regrouped at Nauvoo, Illinois, which grew into one of the largest towns in the state.

At Nauvoo Smith introduced the most distinctive elements of Latter-day Saint theology and ritual. He taught baptism for the dead, citing 1 Corinthians 15:29, and the temple endowment, a ceremony of instruction and covenant-making; many scholars note parallels between the endowment and Masonic ritual, since Smith and many church leaders became Freemasons in 1842, a connection discussed in Freemasonry. He also taught eternal marriage, or sealing, and privately introduced plural marriage to a circle of leaders. When dissenters exposed polygamy in the Nauvoo Expositor in 1844, Smith as mayor ordered the press destroyed. Arrested and held in the jail at Carthage, he and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob on 27 June 1844.

Brigham Young and the West§

A succession crisis followed. Most members accepted the leadership of Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, who led an organised exodus west; the first pioneers reached the Salt Lake Valley in July 1847. Others followed different leaders, and in 1860 several groups united under Smith's son, Joseph Smith III, as the Reorganized Church, today the Community of Christ, headquartered in Independence, Missouri, which rejected plural marriage and has moved towards mainstream Protestantism.

In Utah the church built a society, colonising much of the Great Basin, and openly acknowledged polygamy in 1852. Federal laws against plural marriage, the confiscation of church property and the imprisonment of leaders brought the church to crisis, and in 1890 President Wilford Woodruff issued the Manifesto ending the official sanction of new plural marriages, a policy enforced more firmly from 1904. Utah became a state in 1896. Groups that rejected the change formed fundamentalist movements, such as the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, which the main church does not recognise.

Latter-day Saint Beliefs and Practice§

Latter-day Saints believe in God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost as three distinct beings united in purpose, rather than the Trinity of the historic creeds. They teach that human spirits lived with God before birth, that earthly life is a time of testing and growth, and that through Christ's atonement and obedience to covenants people may progress towards becoming like God. After death nearly all will receive a degree of glory in one of three kingdoms, celestial, terrestrial or telestial, an idea linked to 1 Corinthians 15:40–42.

The church is led by a president regarded as a prophet, with two counsellors and the Twelve Apostles, while local congregations (wards) are run by unpaid lay leaders. Members follow the Word of Wisdom, a health code forbidding alcohol, tobacco, coffee and tea; pay tithing; and attend weekly sacrament meetings. Young members commonly serve as full-time missionaries for eighteen months to two years. Temples, of which there are now hundreds worldwide, are open only to members in good standing for ordinances such as endowments and sealings.

In 1978 the church ended a long-standing restriction that had barred men of Black African descent from the priesthood and Black members from temple ordinances. In 2018 President Russell M. Nelson asked that the church be referred to by its full name rather than as "Mormon" or "LDS", though the terms remain common in scholarship.

Frequently asked questions§

Are Latter-day Saints Christians?§

Latter-day Saints consider themselves Christians, worship Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Saviour, and regard their church as his restored church. Many other Christian churches do not consider them Christian in the creedal sense because of differences over the Trinity, scripture and the nature of God.

What is the Book of Mormon about?§

It tells of peoples who left Jerusalem around 600 BCE and settled in the Americas, their prophets and conflicts, and the visit of the resurrected Christ. Latter-day Saints accept it as ancient scripture; most outside scholars regard it as a nineteenth-century work.

Do Mormons still practise polygamy?§

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ended new plural marriages in 1890 and excommunicates members who practise polygamy. Small fundamentalist groups unaffiliated with the church continue the practice.

Sources and further reading§

• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling — Richard Lyman Bushman, 2005
• No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith — Fawn M. Brodie, 1945
• Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition — Jan Shipps, 1985
• By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion — Terryl L. Givens, 2002
• The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith — Matthew Bowman, 2012
• Early Mormonism and the Magic World View — D. Michael Quinn, 1987
• The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644–1844 — John L. Brooke, 1994