It seems that a belief in Joseph Smith, as a prophet, almost always manifests itself as a belief that whatever Joseph said or did was of God. We can see this today by people using quotes or actions from Joseph to justify whatever they are arguing. It seems if Joseph did it or said it, then that automatically makes it true. For many people Joseph is no longer a prophet, but an actual idol.
Overview
It is almost impossible to discuss the prophetic calling of Joseph without an emotional response. As a missionary for the LDS church, I taught 100’s of times that if the Book of Mormon was scripture, then Joseph was a prophet. Since he was a prophet, then everything he did could be trusted. This logic is of course vastly oversimplified. However, this logic is also embedded in the minds of most members. It is almost unfathomable to think that some of Joseph’s actions could have been prophetic and some of them could not have been. We regularly apply this logic to the current President of the LDS church, yet it is blasphemy to apply it to Joseph.
Of course, Joseph was human, and he made human mistakes. I am not attempting to hold him to any unrealistic standard. However, we all must ask ourselves at what point do natural human mistakes turn into something else? It most certainly depends on the frequency and magnitude of the mistakes. However, it seems everyone would agree that a prophet that starts teaching false doctrine, receiving false revelations, and instituting false ordinances, is no longer a prophet that we should be seeking for guidance from God. It seems everyone agrees except when it pertains to Joseph.
I have looked at every one of these points in much more depth. I will link to sources and my own original research which you can use to determine your own view on each of the subjects. I would strongly encourage you to approach this logically and not emotionally. Mormonism is a beautiful concept, and the Book of Mormon testifies of Christ. However, neither Mormonism nor the Book of Mormon need Joseph as an unfallen prophet for them to stand on their own. Mormonism is also so much more beautiful when you remove the false doctrines that have made their way into it.
1. Altered revelations
The first worrying sign is that Joseph would receive revelations from God and then, for whatever reason, he would sometimes change them in substantial ways. This is not minor grammatical changes or something similar. These changes are sometimes fundamental differences from the original meaning. Some have argued that since Joseph received the revelation then he can change it, however is this how God really works? Does God give incorrect revelations and then require us to update them to become correct?
For instance, just a few months after the church was founded, Joseph received D&C 28 which said that the New Jerusalem would be built “among the Lamanites“. At that time this would have been just west of the Missouri state line. The church tried to get a license to enter Indian territory and start preaching to them and was unable to get the license.
After failing to get the license, then Joseph changed the revelation from “among the Lamanites” to “on the borders by the Lamanites” which was now inside federal territory. This is a huge change and assumes that either God got it wrong, or God doesn’t really care where his city is actually built. Honestly, if God doesn’t care then why not pick a much better location?
Joseph also made a very similar change in D&C 57 where God asked Sidney Gilbert to create a store which would establish a commerce relationship with the Lamanites. When he also failed to get a license for this, then Joseph also changed that revelation. He completely removed the store to the Lamanites concept and changed the revelation to refer to the members instead of the Lamanites. This was a huge and completely unnecessary change.
Maybe the largest example of them all would be D&C 5. The original wording for this revelation specifically instructed Joseph that he was to translate the Book of Mormon and do nothing else, because God would give him no other gifts. Joseph completely changed this so that it read that he would translate the Book of Mormon and then he could do whatever else that he wanted to do. In addition, Joseph felt the need to remove a large section from the revelation which spoke about condemnation. He also felt the need to make numerous other small changes all throughout the D&C.
There is no known reason as to why God would tell Joseph to do nothing else, and then Joseph giving himself permission to do other things in God’s name and God would be okay with that. This is actually the concept of “keys” that most LDS leadership describe today. They basically say that since they are in charge then God is okay with whatever they do. This is not how God has ever worked, and certainly doesn’t seem to be how God worked with Joseph either. If God said to not do anything else, then why would he be fine with you doing something else?
2. Altered scriptures
The next worrying sign is that after the translation of the Book of Mormon, Joseph felt the need to make key changes. Some of these changes also fundamentally altered the doctrinal meaning as well. Again, some have argued that since Joseph did the work of translation to begin with then he also could be the one to change the Book of Mormon afterwards. However, does God actually work like this? Does God give us something that is wrong and then require us to make it right?
In 1837, Joseph felt the need to publish a new edition of the Book of Mormon with some corrections. A lot of these were minor and I will not consider them. However, one was substantial and actually leads to a lot of confusion today. In several verses, such as 1 Nephi 13:40, Joseph felt the need to change the text from saying “the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father” to now reading “the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father”. This is a substantial doctrinal change and honestly correlates with the changing description of God that we see in the multiple First Vision accounts.
Originally, the Book of Mormon, and Joseph, described God as a singular being. However, later First Vision accounts, and now the Book of Mormon, described God as being at least two separate beings, in a literal father and son relationship. This of course is a redefinition of God and if true then why was it not present at the start. Again, the answer is that God gives us invalid things that we must make valid. To me this sounds like making God in our own image.
Overall, this is quite confusing and could be used as an argument to support whatever you want. You would also expect some kind of hint to this fundamental nature of God elsewhere, which we don’t see. Faithful adherents justify this by pointing to obscure references where you have to already agree with the premise to reach the same conclusion.
Another change that Joseph felt was needed, was to change the name of Benjamin to Mosiah in a few places. For instance, Mosiah 21:28, and Ether 4:1, originally listed King Benjamin as the one to possess the records and gifts from God. However, the chronology of the Book of Mormon suggested that King Benjamin would be dead at that time, so this is a likely reason to change the name to Mosiah instead.
If the Book of Mormon is the “most correct of any book on the earth“, and then because of errors it needs to be updated, then what does that tell us? Are all other books more incorrect than the Book of Mormon or is the Book of Mormon now correct because Joseph fixed the errors that were put there during the divinely assisted translation process?
3. Book of Abraham
The next worrying sign is the Book of Abraham. In 1835, Joseph purchased some mummies and a scroll from an antiquities merchant making his way through Kirtland. Joseph felt the scroll was the direct writings of Abraham and began to study Egyptian hieroglyphics and attempted to translate the scroll. Joseph published a partial translation later that year and actually finished the translation in 1842.
Today we know a lot more about the scroll that Joseph used for his translation since we have some of the fragments still and have also found many similar facsimiles in other scrolls. The scroll itself turns out to be a fairly standard Book of Breathing scroll that was given to high-ranking individuals. The Book of Breathing was thought to assist the individual in the afterlife and never has anything to do with Abraham. In fact, everything Joseph claimed about the scroll seems to be completely wrong. Several Egyptologists, inside the church and out, have looked at the fragments, and the facsimiles, and consequently concluded that Joseph’s translation bears no resemblance to the writing itself.
In addition, Joseph claimed, more than once, that the hieroglyphics on the scroll were written directly by Abraham. This would be quite a feat since Abraham lived at least 3000 years before Joseph making preservation of things like a scroll incredibly unlikely. This is not to say it couldn’t happen, but it certainly is quite unlikely.
Many have also claimed that Joseph translated a deeper meaning than the written hieroglyphics read. This is impossible to argue against because someone can always go to another level of deeper meaning if they don’t like the results. However, from the Kirtland era records we have, it certainly seems that Joseph intended to perform a direct translation. For instance, we have documents which list the meanings of specific symbols and hieroglyphics. We also have documents which list a hieroglyphic symbol and then the associated English meaning. This absolutely suggests a direct translation and not a spiritual translation as some have suggested instead.
The last point is that the entire Book of Abraham also fits in with the redefinition of things that Joseph seemed to be performing. For instance, we know that Joseph was now redefining God, and the Book of Abraham plays right into that redefinition. Abraham 3 describes the Council in Heaven, which is quite confusing if God was a singular entity.
In this case, God would be talking to himself and asking himself to do things. However, it also seems to define Michael as a new entity that has more pre-mortal authority than Jesus. The entire interaction is confusing and helps support the later idea that the Godhead is composed of multiple entities and that Jesus is no longer God as the Book of Mormon claims he is.
4. Taught false doctrines
Originally, Mormonism was very much like a standard Christian church however it ended drastically different. We can see this by comparing almost anything in the church from the beginnings in Palmyra to the end of Joseph’s life in Nauvoo. Specifically, sealing started as being sealed to God and ended as being sealed in marriage. The ordinances of the Gospel started as faith, repentance, and baptism, then they ended as including secret masonic initiation rites. Lastly, God started as a single divine being and then ended as an infinite series of beings that needed bodies for their personal advancement.
In all honesty, a Mormon from palmyra wouldn’t recognize one from Nauvoo, and they both wouldn’t recognize one today. Each of these groups are wildly different. Depending on someone’s perspective then this may be a positive thing, however it also leaves an enormous amount of room for doctrinal mistakes as well. It would be silly to think that everything that is taught, in the church, as truth is in fact true. The scriptures are full of examples of people who had errors in their foundational beliefs. Believing that somehow, we are exempt from this universal flaw in human nature is extreme hubris.
It is somewhat painful to consider, however some of the false doctrine that has pervaded the church is because of Joseph. It can’t all be Brigham’s fault. We can see this in the clear evolution of doctrines that Joseph taught which culminated in the King Follett discourse. Many today like to blame Brigham for everything wrong in the church, however I think this is being intellectually lazy. We can’t just blame the boogeyman for everything we don’t like.
To be specific, the Bible and Book of Mormon both describe the concept of being sealed to God. However, this is a status that God gives to man. Joseph however reversed this and would commonly go around sealing people to eternal life. This of course is reassuring. However, it means nothing to God. Today this concept is known as a second anointing and is also just as meaningless to God. If God promises a person eternal life, then according to the scriptures God is going to tell them personally and not through someone else.
Another example is the concept of Priesthood. Scripturally there is a concept of Priesthood, however Joseph felt the need to change this over time and make it more like we view it today. This resulted in a rigid hierarchy of control and obedience. God doesn’t work this way. Yes, not everyone can lead the church. However, everyone can certainly get important revelation not just those in a chain of command style hierarchy.
A last example is the King Follett discourse itself. Many consider this a pinnacle of Joseph’s prophetic gift. However, almost all of the teachings from the discourse actually violate the scriptures. For instance, Joseph taught that God was once a man which violates numerous scriptures about God being eternal. Joseph taught that God has a body which also violates several teachings from the scriptures and even the earlier teachings of the church. Lastly, Joseph taught, in the discourse, that children that die will remain children eternally. This frankly doesn’t even make any sense at all. So many children have died that you would expect, in the eternities, for the children to far outnumber the adults.
5. Excommunicated dissidents
One of the primary complaints from the Nauvoo Expositor was that Joseph was excommunicating those that disagreed with him. He would sometimes have a show trial and other times he would excommunicate individuals with no notice whatsoever. This was a primary point of contention between William Law, who was appointed to the First Presidency by God, and between Joseph. William Law felt that Joseph had deviated from the truth and Joseph responded by excommunicating him, and several others, without their knowledge.
I can’t possibly consider a case where this would be justifiable. Of course, William Law could have been wrong about some things. However, only dictators silence their critics and declare them as being so wrong they can’t be part of the group anymore. This is also further complicated because Joseph had no authority to drop William Law from the First Presidency. Joseph led the church, however God chose Joseph’s councilors.
This also violated the scriptures themselves, which Joseph claimed to have received from God. For instance, D&C 107 states that a member of the First Presidency was to be treated uniquely and not the same as other members in the case of discipline. Joseph almost certainly didn’t want William Law to have an audience with the church and knew that once he was excommunicated then most would automatically ignore everything he said.
This is also a strategy employed today by the church. If a member raises concerns in the church, and are sufficiently vocal about them, then they will be disciplined. This will metaphorically put a stain on them which will cause faithful members to think of them as an apostate and thus should be avoided. There have been numerous cases where members were excommunicated and then an announcement was made, to the general membership, stating this fact. This effectively means that nothing they say is important because they are just a disgruntled former member of the church.
6. False revelations
The next point of concern was that Joseph would often receive false revelations that were not from God. This means they would either be things that Joseph just made up and went with, or they would be revelations given to him by Satan. This is hard to fathom today since we generally think of once a prophet, always a prophet. However, this is not how things work. We really should focus on the individual statements of Joseph themselves instead of applying a mythical status to his entire life.
Specifically, though, Joseph received several revelations that later turned out to be false. For instance, he received a revelation to sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon in Canada. This would have netted Joseph a sizable amount of money which he was going to intentionally keep from Martin Harris, even though he contractually promised Martin otherwise. After this endeavor failed Joseph then admitted that not all revelation was from God.
A few years later, Joseph received a revelation stating that he was to start a bank which would take over the entire world financially. This bank was known as the Kirtland Safety Society and was started just a few months before the 1838 banking crash. Even when the bank was obviously crashing, Joseph regularly urged the members to invest in the bank and keep it solvent. This led to a huge number of financial problems among the membership when it closed its doors. This was a false revelation and likely motivated by a desire to gain from the endeavor since if the bank succeeded then Joseph would have personally benefitted enormously.
A last example is the Council of Fifty. This group was organized according to another revelation and was to be the government of God’s soon to be established kingdom. This government would go forth and be the stone in Daniel’s vision according to the revelation. However, this was another example of a false revelation motivated by current desires. The church was under enormous strain and needed to leave the United States, so Joseph received a revelation stating that they were to do so. This was convenient, timely, and completely false. The Council of Fifty was largely a pointless group and just met to talk about their own importance.
7. Temporal concerns
Shortly after the church was organized, Joseph received what is known today as D&C 24. In this section Joseph was told to focus on building up Zion and not going after temporal concerns. He was directly told that his temporal concerns would fail since that was not his calling. However, if we actually look at Joseph’s life after the organization of the church then he almost exclusively went after temporal concerns instead of focusing on Zion like God asked him to.
For instance, Joseph opened a mercantile company in Kirtland which quickly failed and needed to be bailed out by the church. He even had to mortgage the Kirtland temple to pay off some of his bills which is completely crazy to even think about. Joseph also started the Kirtland Safety Society bank which also failed and needed to be bailed out by the church. There was no reason, at all, for the church to have needed a bank yet Joseph thought it would be a good endeavor and use of his time.
Joseph also started the Council of Fifty which was another drain on his time, energy, and resources. This was another failure with the members of the council even being reprioritized during his presidential campaign. The entire presidential campaign was also a temporal distraction since there was no reasonable chance he was going to be elected as president and just seemed to be a distraction from the current problems he was facing.
If we actually look at Joseph’s life, then almost the entirety of it was focused on temporal concerns. He was the financial overseer of the church as the trustee, he was the mayor of Nauvoo, and the General of the Nauvoo legion. Joseph was the Chief judge and magistrate for legal matters. He was the land agent responsible for selling land parcels and deciding land use agreements. Lastly, he was a candidate for the president of the United States.
I am actually not sure how much more temporal Joseph could have been. He likely felt justified in everything since in his mind he was doing it for God. However, this is the same logic people use today. They want this or that to help God. However, in reality they want it for themselves, and God is secondary. This is like praying that God makes you rich because you want to do good things with the money. However, those good things will only happen after you benefit yourself with all that new money.
8. No more revelations
Another point of concern is that almost all the revelations Joseph received were around the founding of the church. After this period then Joseph received almost no additional revelations. Of course, he did an enormous number of things after this period, yet very little of it was in the form of a written revelation. Joseph would just say God wants me to do this or that and then just do it.
Almost all of what we know as Mormonism today is a result of Joseph changing the church in fundamental ways and we have no written revelations for it. Scripturally, it is very surprising since if we look at Moses in the Bible then he received written revelations for almost everything. The entire law was written out so it could be read, studied, and contemplated.
In Joseph’s day though, virtually nothing was written out and instead it was just changed according to Joseph’s desires. Certainly, there were general sections like D&C 20 which described administrative requirements of the church. However, there was very little written out about the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples. Very little was written out about the secret new ordinances. Lastly, very little was written out about the origins for the new doctrines that Joseph taught.
Is this how God operates now? Are we just to follow the leaders and trust that they have everything correct. If God did in fact give a revelation, then why can it not be put in words for others to benefit from? It seems these revelations could at one time be put in words. However, during the rapid changes in the Nauvoo era this was no longer a possibility for Joseph.
9. Illegal activities
Another point of concern is that Joseph and the law didn’t always agree. Yes, things were different in Joseph’s time. However, I don’t believe this gives a reason for Joseph to have done completely illegal things. They were illegal back then and certainly illegal today.
For instance, after the 1838 Missouri war, where many members of the church openly attacked the Missourians, Joseph surrendered himself to the authorities to avoid further conflict. Joseph was put in Liberty Jail however he didn’t want to remain there and tried to escape several times. After being indicted for treason, he decided to bribe the guard and was eventually set free.
The Missourians didn’t like this and found the guard and made a public example of him which resulted in his death. After this point the Missourians constantly tried to get Joseph to stand trial, yet he continually used tricks to avoid this. Even going so far as using his authority in Nauvoo to arrest those that tried to bring him back to Missouri. We would never stand for this today, yet Joseph was okay with doing it since it protected him from natural consequences. If he was innocent, then wouldn’t God protect him or did he need to do illegal things to gain God’s protection?
Another case was that after the failure of Joseph’s Kirtland businesses then he was deeply in debt. He was able to mitigate this to a large degree, however in 1842 he eventually filed for bankruptcy. However, Joseph sought to hide quite a lot of his assets from the bankruptcy filings. For instance, prior to the filing Joseph started deeding property to several individuals including his very young children. In one case he gave his 10-year-old daughter 237 acres of land. The Illinois government found out about this and was in the process of holding Joseph accountable when he died. This is incredibly illegal and is called bankruptcy fraud today.
10. Secret societies
The last point of concern is that Joseph was starting to engage in secret practices and secret societies. During the early 1800’s, secret groups like freemasonry were very popular so it is somewhat understandable. However, once Joseph firmly adopted freemasonry then much of Mormonism was altered to fit these new secret practices.
For instance, Joseph oversaw the creation of a Nauvoo masonic lodge in 1842. In this lodge Joseph was advanced to the highest level of Masonry and initiated several others into masonry. By 1844, many of the men in Nauvoo were masons and freemasonry had become a core part of the religious doctrines of the church. In a private letter from Heber C. Kimball to Parley P. Pratt, Heber even remarked that according to Joseph, freemasonry was a perverted form of the true priesthood order. In fact, the original endowment, which was supposedly required for exaltation, shared numerous similarities with a freemasonry initiation rite.
In addition to freemasonry, Joseph swore different groups to secrecy with the Council of Fifty even remarking that they would be killed if they divulged the secret. Joseph also engaged in a secret group, known as the Anointed Quorum, whose objective was to initiate the elect insiders into the new temple ceremonies.
To me this sounds like the secret groups in the book of Ether that we were specifically told to avoid. Joseph’s group had secret signs, tokens, and keywords in order to identify other members. The secret groups in the book of Ether also had secret signs, tokens, and keywords in order to differentiate themselves. Why would the truth of God need to operate like this? If what Joseph was revealing was true, then why would it need to be a secret and closely guarded? Why not publish the written revelation and then rejoice in the new truth from God? Does God operate in secret?
Conclusion
There are so many amazing things we can learn from early Mormonism. However, we must also discern between truth and error in doing so. It is so easy to use the simple logic that if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a faultless prophet of God. It also is so easy to find fault with the current church, while not applying the same logic to the early church. Many think that because Joseph started the church, then it couldn’t have been wrong however this is circular logic.
Of course, Joseph was a human and he made mistakes. However, what if those mistakes were fundamental to what Joseph was teaching? What if the temple was a mistake, or the ordinances, or the new doctrines? It is so easy for overzealous people to go far beyond their boundaries and then claim rights and privileges they were never given in the first place. This doesn’t mean the person is evil or lying. It just means that humans are incredibly complicated, and we all experience things completely different. Even today people claim things are from God, that almost certainly are not.
I respect Joseph and I respect everything that he did in leading a troubled people back to God. I don’t believe he had evil intentions in anything that he ever did. However, we must not make the mistake in believing that because Joseph said it, or did it, then that makes it true. It is so easy to get caught up in our own way of doing things, and so easy to lose sight of God’s simple way of doing things. Prophet’s can make mistakes, so why not Joseph also?
Many of the people that knew Joseph best, recognized that he had deviated from God and was no longer the same person. For instance, Oliver Cowdrey, David Whitmer, John Corrill, Warren Parrish, and William Law were all personal associates of Joseph and recognized things were no longer correct. Today we think of them as apostates for leaving the church, yet that couldn’t be further from the truth. They were just the ones that were willing to admit that their original understanding was now wrong, and they were now willing to follow God elsewhere. We all must be willing to admit when we are wrong and seek God elsewhere when needed.
