Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith and the Long Eighteenth Century | Colby Townsend, ed., Envisioning Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Revelations in Their EarlyAmerican Contexts

Stephen Thomas Betts

The ten essays in this volume were brought together to facilitate engagement between scholars of “early Mormonism and early American religious and literary history” (ix). With a designedly inter- or transdisciplinary ambition, Envisioning Scripture assembles…

Joseph Smith and the Possibility of Comics Andrew Knaupp and Sal Velluto, Pillar of Light Mark Elwood, The Glass Looker Noah Van Sciver, Joseph Smith and the Mormons

Theric Jepson

Renaissance scholar Ada Palmer estimates we know 1 percent of what happened five hundred years ago and that two-thirds of what we know is wrong. I have no reason to doubt her expertise—and every reason…

Joseph Smith’s History: It’s Complicated Ronald O. Barney, Joseph Smith: History, Methods, and Memory

Samuel B. Hislop

JOSEPH SMITH’S EXPERIENCE OF A METHODIST “CAMP-MEETING” IN 1820

D. Michael Quinn

Dialogue E-Paper July 12, 2006
As an alternative to myopic polarization, this essay provides new ways of understanding Joseph’s narrative, analyzes previously neglected issues/data, and establishes a basis for perceiving in detail what the teenage boy experienced in the religious revivalism that led to his first theophany

Does Joseph’s Letter to Emma of 4 November 1838 Show that He Knew about Chiasmus?

Boyd F. Edwards

Note: This article one of the special web-only series and not printed in a physical issue.

A Reflection on Joseph Smith’s Restorationist Vision of Truth

Ryan D. Ward

Dialogue 55.2 (Spring 2022): 93–102
The way of viewing truth in the Church differs from the common philosophical concept of truth as something that corresponds to the historical or present facts of a given situation.

Was Joseph Smith a Monarchotheist? An Engagement with Blake Ostler’s Theological Position on the Nature of God

Loren Pankratz

Dialogue 55.2 (Spring 2022): 37–72
Joseph Smith’s teachings on God found in his preaching at the April 7, 1844 general conference, known as the King Follett Sermon, and Smith’s Sermon in the Grove, given at a meeting held just east of the Nauvoo Temple on June 16, 1844, have appeared to many to give strong support to this view. There, he taught that God was not always God but developed into God over time.

Cunning and Disorderly: Early Nineteenth-Century Witch Trials of Joseph Smith

Manuel W. Padro

Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 35–70
When we assess Joseph Smith’s early trials as if the word “pretended” indicated deliberate deception on Joseph’s part, we miss the larger picture.

Joseph Smith, Thomas Paine, and Matthew 27:51b–53

Grant Adamson

Dialogue 54.4 (Winter 2021): 1–33
Despite its alleged antiquity, jutting back centuries before the Common Era, and its predominant setting in the Americas, the Book of Mormon contains several Matthean and Lukan additions to Mark made in the Greco-Roman Mediterranean.

Praise to the Man: The Development of Joseph Smith Deification in Woolleyite Mormonism, 1929–1977

Cristina Rosetti

Dialogue 54.3 (Fall 2021): 41–65
However, the 1886 Revelation and subsequent statement also raised their own doctrinal questions that were continually developed through the lineage that became Woolleyite Mormonism. Namely, why was the resurrected Joseph Smith present alongside Jesus Christ at the meeting with John Taylor?

The Secular Binary of Joseph Smith’s Translations

Michael Hubbard MacKay

Dialogue 54.3 (Fall 2021): 1–40
The debate about Joseph Smith’s translations have primarily assumed that the translation was commensurable and focuses upon theories of authorial involvement of Joseph Smith.

Politicking with the Saints: On Reading Benjamin Park’s Kingdom of Nauvoo Benjamin E. Park, Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier

S. Spencer Wells

In an era awash in a sea of reboots and re-examinations, one may be forgiven for initially wondering why yet another treatment of Mormon Nauvoo is strictly necessary. The city, after all, has received its…

The Limits of Naturalistic Criteria for the Book of Mormon: Comparing Joseph Smith and Andrew Jackson Davis

William L. Davis

Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 73–103
Davis compares the two men, saying “Davis, like Smith, was raised in a poor household and received little formal education—Davis, in fact, would claim to have received only “little more than five months” of schooling.”

Revisiting Joseph Smith and the Availability of the Book of Enoch

Colby Townsend

Dialogue 53.3 (Fall 2020): 41–106
Regarding the discussions in Mormon studies and other literary sub-fields related to contemporaries of Smith, the availability of ideas about 1 Enoch and some of the actual content were far more complicated than has usually been assumed in past scholarship.

Joseph Smith and the Face of Christ

Robert A. Rees

“He will unveil his face to you.” D&C 88:67–68 “Everything in the realm of nature and human existence is a sign—a manifestation of God’s divine names and attributes. . . . As it is said in the Qur’an,…

A Commentary on Joseph Smith’s Revision of First Corinthians

Kevin L. Barney

Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 57–106
Although Smith desired to publish the new translation, circumstances were such that publication at that time was not possible.

What Size of City, and What Sort of City, Could (or Should) the City of Zion Be?

Russell Arben Fox

Why the Prophet is a Puzzle: The Challenges of Using Psychological Perspectives to Understand the Character and Motivation of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Lawrence Foster

Dialogue 53.2 (Summer 2020): 1–35
This article will explore how one of the most open-ended psychological interpretations of Smith’s prophetic leadership and motivation might contribute to better understanding the trajectory of this extraordinarily talented and conflicted individual whose life has so deeply impacted the religious movement he founded and, increasingly, the larger world.

Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon: Co-Founders of a Movement

Steven L. Shields

Dialogue 52.3 (Fall 2019): 1–18
Shields argues that if you deny or dismiss Sidney Ridgon’s contributions to the early church, then the scripture canon during this time would need to be reinterpreted.

Pedagogy of Perfection: Joseph Smith’s Perfectionism, How It was Taught in the Early LDS Church, and Its Contemporary Applicability

Richard Sleegers

Dialogue 51.4 (Winter 2018): 105–143
Richard Sleegers contrasts 19th century Protestant teachings about salvations to what Joseph Smith taught about life after death.

Thomas Aquinas Meets Joseph Smith: Toward a Mormon Ethics of Natural Law

Levi Checketts

Reassessing Joseph Smith Jr.’s Formal Education

William L. Davis

The Novel Mormon Doctrines of Ultimate Rewards and Punishments as First Revealed in The Vision: Some Observations on History, Sources, and Interpretation

Clyde D. Ford

Elegy / Prayer

C. Dylan Bassett

New Voices: Ecology of Absence

Brooke Larson

New Voices: Flaming

Craig Mangum

A Documentary Note on a Letter to Joseph Smith. Romance, Death, and Polygamy: The Life and Times of Susan Hough Conrad and Lorenzo Dow Barnes

William V. Smith

Dialogue 49.4 (Winter 2016): 87–108
The history behind a letter that was written by missionary Jedediah Morgan Grant to Joseph Smith, which contained information about Susan Hough Conrad and her brief love writings with a missionary who was serving in England named Lorenzo Dow Barnes.

The Holy Priesthood, the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Community

Benjamin Keogh

“The Perfect Union of Man and Woman”: Reclamation and Collaboration in Joseph Smith’s Theology Making

Fiona Givens

Dialogue 49.1 (Spring 2016): 1–26
Central to Joseph’s creative energies was a profound commitment to an ideal of cosmic as well as human collaboration. His personal mode of leadership increasingly shifted from autocratic to collaborative—and that mode infused both his most radical theologizing and his hopes for Church comity itself.

Palmyra Redemption: July 18, 2015

Neil Longo

Joseph Smith and the Sources of Love

Truman G. Madsen

My brothers and sisters, today we reach into a realm that is subtle and intricate, all intertwined with feeling. More than usual I pray that you will be forgiving if my own feelings are apparent.…

The Church and the Law | Dallin H. Oaks, “The Suppression of the Nauvoo Expositor,” and Orma Linford, “The Mormons and the Law: The Polygamy Cases”

Thomas G. Alexander

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Church and its leaders were regularly involved with federal and state law. The recent article by Professor Dallin H. Oaks[1] is a prudent, well researched attempt to deal with one…

The Significance of Joseph Smith’s “First Vision” in Mormon Thought

James B. Allen

Dialogue 1.3 (Fall 1966): 29–46
In this early article, Allen shows that the First Vision was not well known during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. It became well known after the Prophet’s death, which is when missionaries started to teach about it for the first time.

“’I Never Knew a Time When I Did Not Know Joseph Smith”: A Son’s Record Of The Life And Testimony Of Sidney Rigdon

Karl Keller

Dialogue 1.4 (Spring 1966): 15–42
Not very long after the death of Sidney Rigdon, the influential preacher and compatriate to Joseph Smith in the first years of the Church, his son, John Wickliffe Rigdon, wrote an apology for his father.

The Facsimile Found: The Recovery of Joseph Smith’s Papyrus Manuscripts: An Interview with Dr. Fischer

Lynn Travers

DIALOGUE: On Monday, November 27, 1967, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City presented a number of documents to President N. Eldon Tanner of the First Presidency, who accepted them on behalf of…

The Facsimile Found: The Recovery of Joseph Smith’s Papyrus Manuscripts: A Conversation with Professor Atiya

Glen Wade

Dialogue 2.4 (Winter 1967)51– 54.
Although not a member of the Church, Dr. Atiya for many years had cherished his Latter-day Saint friends and is well informed about Church beliefs. He is aware of the history of the papyri and their relationship to the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price and is acquainted with the three facsimiles.

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: Phase One

Hugh Nibley

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968)101 – 105
Even a casual reading of the Book of Abraham shows that the story refers not so much to unique historic events as to ritual forms and traditions—all these must be checked. So far we have heard what is wrong or at least suspect about the Book of Abraham, but as yet nobody has cared to report on the other side of the picture. It is for that we are saving our footnotes.

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: The Book of Breathings

Richard A. Parker

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968)98
THE BOOK OF BREATHINGS (FRAGMENT I, THE “SENSEN” TEXT, WITH RESTORATIONS FROM LOUVRE PAPYRUS 3284) translated by Richard A. Parker

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: The Source of the Book of Abraham Identified

Jerald Tanner

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968): 92–97
A description of the alleged Egyptain papyri used by Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Abraham

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: A Tentative Approach to the Book of Abraham

Richard P. Howard

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968):89 – 92
It appears that in time the mystery of the Book of Abraham will be unveiled. Meanwhile, it is significant for the Reorganized Church that undue haste and overzealous faith did not move it in the nineteenth century to canonize this work of Joseph Smith, Jr., primarily on the basis that it was accomplished by Joseph Smith, Jr.

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: The Joseph Smith Papyri: A Preliminary Report

Richard A. Parker

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968):86 – 88
The papyri need to be carefully cleaned and straightened and then rephotographed with care to illuminate the under side somewhat to eliminate all shadows in cracks and breaks, which can frequently look just like writing.

The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: A Summary Report

John A. Wilson

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968):67 – 85
The Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri once consisted of at least six separate documents, possibly eight or more.

Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew

Louis C. Zucker

Dialogue 3.2 (Summer 1968): 41–55
Zucker describes the efforts that Joseph Smith went through to study Hebrew. Joseph Smith’s personal behavior was apparently not changed, but in other aspects in later years there is evidence that Joseph Smith was using Hebrew language structure

Mrs. Brodie and Joseph Smith | F. L. Stewart, Exploding the Myth about Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet

Max H. Parkin

Dialogue 3.3 (Fall 1968): 142–145
In response to Fawn Brodies’s biography of Joseph Smith, F.L. Stewart published a book called Exploding the Myth About Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet.

Joseph Smith’s Presidential Platform: The Political Legacy of Joseph Smith

Martin B. Hickman

There is a game popular among Mormons which any number can play; it is easy to learn and it requires very little equipment: it is called, “Quoting the Prophet.” To play the game all one…

Joseph Smith’s Presidential Platform: Joseph Smith and the Presidency, 1844

Richard D. Poll

At a meeting in the mayor’s office in Nauvoo, Illinois, on January 29, 1844, it was moved and voted unanimously that “we will have an independent electoral ticket, and that Joseph Smith be a candidate…

The Joseph Smith Papyri

Benjamin Urrutia

Of the subject of my study, only fragments and copies of fragments are left. These are “Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papyri” numbers 1, 10 and 11, and the three Facsimiles of the Pearl of Great Price. But these are enough. I have glued them to a roll of paper 10×150 centimeters long (according to Doctor Baer’s indications), and I have a pretty good idea of what PJS (as I shall call this document) must have looked like before it broke into pieces over a century ago. 

Governor Thomas Ford and the Murderers of Joseph Smith

Keith Huntress

Dialogue 4.2 (Summer 1969): 41–52
Member and non members have criticized Governor Thomas Ford of Illinois for his inability to save Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. Huntress was arguing that Governor Ford had a lot of difficulties that he had to deal with at that time.

The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith

Richard Lloyd Anderson

Dialogue 4.2 (Summer 1971): 13–28
Mormon history is a part of this magnificent proliferation of data and research techniques. Its own archives are in the midst of classification by professionally competent standards. There is hope for a new era, in which Mormon and non-Mormon may meet on the common ground of objective fact.

A Comment on Joseph Smith’s Account of His First Vision and the 1820 Revival

Peter Crawley

Dialogue 6.1 (Spring 1971): 106–107
Ever since people first heard of the First Vision, the events surrounding it has been clouded by controversy. Crawley comments with historical references that help to clarify this controversy.

Joseph Smith, An American Muhammad? An Essay On the Perils of Historical Analogy

Arnold H. Green

Dialogue 6.1 (Spring 1971): 46–58
Since around the time as the martyrdom, Joseph Smith has been compared to Muhammad who was the founder of Islam. Green and Goldrup presents evidence for how Islam and the church are different.

Joseph Fielding Smith: Faithful Historian

Leonard J. Arrington

“To record as truth that which is false, and to palm off as facts that which is fiction degrades [the writer], insults his readers, and outrages his profession.”—Joseph Fielding Smith Joseph Fielding Smith began his service in the…

The Discomforter: Some Personal Memories of Joseph Fielding Smith

Richard Cracroft

I was about twelve when I first met President and Sister Smith. They had come to visit the Thirty-Third Ward, Bonneville Stake, and the family of my pal, Doug Myers, my bishop’s son and President…

A Prophet’s Goodly Grandparents | Richard Lloyd Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage: Influences of Grandfathers Solomon Mack and Asael Smith

Dean C. Jessee

Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage by Dr. Richard L. Anderson is an important contribution to an understanding of Joseph Smith’s immediate ancestry and the domestic environment in which he was raised. Since Joseph attributed dominant…

Brodie Revisited: A Reappraisal | Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet

Marvin S. Hill

For more than a quarter century Fawn Brodie’s No Man Knows My History has been recognized by most professional American historians as the standard work on the life of Joseph Smith and perhaps the most…

A Hint of an Explanation | Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: an Egyptian Endowment

Eric Jay Olson

Dialogue 9.4 (Winter 1974): 74–75
Review of An Egyptian Endowment by Hugh Nibley, which discusses the papyri that Joseph Smith allegedly used to help translate the Book of Abraham. Hugh Nibley decided to state his case, but allow readers to form their own conclusions after reading it.

The Law Above the Law | Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill, Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith

Jerry Jensen

Dialogue 10.1 (1975-1976): 84–86
Review of Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith coauthored by Dallin H. Oaks and Marvin S. Hill regarding the trial of Joseph Smith and his brother’s Hyrum deaths. Jensen argues that this book is a mustread for anyone who is interested in ‘Mormon history, philosophy, and the law.’

Fate and the Persecutors of Joseph Smith: Transmutations of an American Myth

Richard C. Poulsen

Dialogue 11.4 (1977): 63-70
In the 1950s there was a book published call Fate of the Persecutors of Joseph Smith, which contains stories that have been part of folklore that have been passed down discussing what happened to the people who helped kill Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith and Thomas Paine? | Robert N. Hullinger, Mormon Answer to Skepticism: Why Joseph Smith Wrote the Book of Mormon

Gary P. Gillum

Thirteen years ago a heavily publicized and startling book called The Passover Plot, by Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield, daringly asserted that Jesus Christ planned his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection; that he had beforehand arranged…

Fawn McKay Brodie: An Oral History Interview

Shirley E. Stephenson

The following is excerpted from a longer interview conducted by Shirley E. Stephenson as part of the Oral History Program at California State University at Fullerton, November 30, 1975.

Joseph Smith and the Structure of Mormon Identity

Steven L. Olsen

Dialogue 14.3 (Fall 1981): 89–100
Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of the First Vision has taken priority in structuring Mormon identity, despite the existence of different versions. This article explores why that version is so meaningful to Latter-day Saints, reflecting on the symbolic strucutre of the account.

Joseph Smith III’s 1844 Blessing and the Mormons of Utah

D. Michael Quinn

Members of the Mormon Church headquartered in Salt Lake City may have reacted anywhere along the spectrum from sublime indifference to temporary discomfiture to cold terror at the recently discovered blessing by Joseph Smith, Jr.,…

Joseph Smith: “The Gift of Seeing”

Richard Van Wagoner

Dialogue 15.2 (Summer 1982): 48–68
Van Wagoner and Walker focus on the seer stones that Joseph Smith used in the Book of Mormon translation process.

The First Vision Controversy: A Critique and Reconciliation

Marvin S. Hill

Ever since Fawn Brodie wrote No Man Knows My History in 1946 and emphatically denied that there was any valid evidence that Joseph Smith experienced a visitation from the Father and the Son in 1820,…

Thoughts on the Mormon Scriptures: An Outsider’s View of the Inspiration of Joseph Smith

William P. Collins

How is the Mormon Church viewed by those who are not members? One view is that Mormons are successful and prosperous, that they “take care of their own,” that they live good lives, and that…

Joseph Smith and Process Theology

Garland E. Tickemyer

Dialogue 17.3 (Fall 1984): 75–88
Utah Mormons have had over a hundred years in which to systematize and institutionalize their beliefs. Institutionalized religion tends to expend its energies in conserving and promulgating the truths once delivered to the saints.

The Benefits of Partisanship | Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism

Dean C. Jessee

During the 1970s a comprehensive history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in sixteen volumes was contemplated as one of the projects of the Historical Department of the Church, with Leonard J.…

Joseph Smith and the Clash of Sacred Cultures

Keith Parry

Dialogue 18.4 (Winter 1984): 65–80
Shortly after the church was organized, one of Joseph Smith’s main priorities during his lifetime was preaching to the Native Americans, who he believed to be the descendants of the Lamanites.

Joseph Smith, Sr., Dreams of His Namesake

Michael Hicks

Vermont, Autumn 1805 

And the boy, the milky angel said, 
will be like the wild rain 
that shatters the crops and spins the brittle stalks 
end upon end.

The United Order of Joseph Smith’s Times

Kent W. Huff

Section 82 of the Doctrine and Covenants, dated 26 April 1832, guided the formation of a united order in the Joseph Smith era. Until recently, code names were shown for the nine participants: Ahashdah (Newel…

Joseph Smith and the Plurality of Worlds Idea

Robert E. Paul

Joseph Smith was not the first person to use the plurality of worlds concept. In the early seventeenth century, natural philosophers began speculating on the idea of multiple world systems. By the eighteenth century, Protestant…

The Joseph Smith Translation and Ancient Texts of the Bible

Kevin L. Barney

The question this essay attempts to answer is whether the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (JST) represents in any way a restoration of text that originally existed in ancient manuscripts but was later altered…

Rediscovering the Context of Joseph Smith’s Treasure Seeking

Alan Taylor

Dialogue 19.4 (Winter1986): 18–28
Taylor identifies the history behind the Smith Family and treasure seeking. During the 19th century treasure seeking is associated with both greed, but also obtaining spirtual knowledge like in Joseph Smith’s case.

Uncle Joseph Smith, 1781-1854: Patriarchal Bridge

Irene M. Bates

John Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, Sr., and uncle of the Prophet Joseph Smith, was an unspectacular, though far from ordinary man. Amid the troubles and uncertainties following the June 1844 martyrdom of the Prophet…

Methods and Motives: Joseph Smith III’s Opposition to Polygamy, 1860-90

Roger D. Launius

Dialogue 20.4 (Winter 1987): 77–85
When Joseph Smith III preached his first sermon as a leader of the Reoganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints at Amboy, Illinois, on 6 April 1860, he expressed his unqualifed aversion to the Mormon doctrine of plural marriage. 

Before Constantine, After Joseph Smith | Graydon F. Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine

James Whitehurst

Few recent books substantiate the major claims of Restoration faith as well as Graydon Snyder’s Ante Pacem. A professor at Bethany Theological Seminary, Snyder convincingly shows that the early church had structures and cultic forms…

The “New Mormon History” Reassessed in Light of Recent Book on Joseph Smith and Mormon Origins

Marvin S. Hill

In 1959, while a graduate student at the University of Chicago, I wrote a review of the historiography of Mormonism for Church History which incorporated the major books and articles from 1832 to 1959 in…

A Prophet’s Progress | Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, and Scott R. Faulring, An American Prophet’s Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith

Roger D. Launius

No one today knows more about the handwriting, letters, and other documents produced by Joseph Smith, Jr., than Dean C. Jessee. Long a careful student of these primary resources, his comprehensive editing of the Prophet’s writings…

The Papers of the Prophet | Dean C. Jessee, ed., The Papers of Joseph Smith: Volume I, Autobiographical and Historical Writings

Roger D. Launius

It takes a meticulous person to edit historical documents. No amount of effort should be too much to obtain the stray fact, to check the transcription, the con text, and the details of an edited…

Affidavits Revisited | Roger I. Anderson, Joseph Smith’s New York Reputation Reexamined

Roger D. Launius

In Another Part of the Twenties (1977), Paul A. Carter upended all of the stereo types advanced by historians about the 1920s. The jazz age was really more of a waltz than most people thought;…

The Administrative Role of the Presidency: The Founding Prophet: An Administrative Biography of Joseph Smith, Jr.

Ronald E. Romig

Dialogue 25.3 (Fall 1992): 197–198
RLDS Church Archivist Ronald E Romig expected The Founding Prophet: An Administrative Biography of Joseph Smith, Jr. to be exclusively about Joseph Smith. Instead Maurice L. Draper who was both a member of the RLDS Quroum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency, focused more on different adminstrative situations in the RLDS church.

Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Translation” of Romans 7

Ronald V. Huggins

The Psychology of Religious Genius: Joseph Smith and the Origins of New Religious Movements

Lawrence Foster

Dialogue 26.4 (Winter 1993): 1–22
The analysis that follos is an admittedly speculative personal reflection on elements that need to be kept in mind in understanding the psychological dynamics of Joseph Smith’s creativity.

Easy-to-Read: A Consumer’s Report: The Easy-to-Read Book of Mormon: Based on the Work Translated by Joseph Smith, Jr.

Christian Anderson

From Temple to Anti-Mormon: The Ambivalent Odyssey of Increase Van Dusen

Craig L. Foster

Toward an Introduction to a Psychobiography of Joseph Smith

Robert D. Anderson

One Face of the Hero: In Search of the Mythological Joseph Smith

Edgar C. Snow Jr.

Dialogue 27.3 (Fall 1994): 233–247
Snow puts Joseph Smith squarely within Joseph Campbell’s famous work The Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is also known as the heroes journey.

The Locations of Joseph Smith’s Early Treasure Quests

Dan Vogel

Dialogue 27.3 (Fall 1994): 197–231

Vogel uses firsthand accounts of people’s reactions to Joseph Smith’s treasure digging.

Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: The Occult Connection

Lance S. Owens

“Critical” Book of Mormon Scholarship: New Approaches to the Book of Mormon

Stephen E. Thompson

A Trajectory of Plurality: An Overview of Joseph Smith’s Thirty-three Plural Wives

Todd M. Compton

Of Prophets and Pale Horses: Joseph Smith, Benjamin West, and the American Millenarian Tradition

Noel A. Carmack

Joseph Smith’s Emendation of Hebrew Genesis 1:1

Kevin L. Barney

Joseph Smith’s Interpretation of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon

David P. Wright

Dialogue 31.4 (Winter 1999):190–199
It is noteworthy be￾cause, instead of laying out the original historical meaning of Isaiah, it re￾applies the text to the time of Joseph Smith and to the course of Jewish and Christian history up to his time.

Sex and Prophetic Power: A Comparison of John Humphrey Noyes with Joseph Smith, Jr.

Lawrence Foster

Plural Marriage, Singular Lives: In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith by Todd Compton

Lawrence Foster

Being Joseph Smith: The Sword of Laban: Joseph Smith, Jr., and the Dissociated Mind

Janet Brigham

Lucy’s Own Voice: Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir

Susan Sessions Rugh

Book of Mormon Stories: Digging in Cumorah: Reclaiming Book of Mormon Narratives

Jana Riess

Friendly History: Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise, by Glen M. Leonard

Gary James Bergera

Wars of Preemption, Wars of Revenge

Jeffrey r. Johansen

Why I Can’t Write My Joseph Smith Play

Gary Stewart

Would Joseph Smith Attend the New York State Arts Festival?

Richard Bushman

My “Affair” with Fawn McKay Brodie: Motive Pain and Pleasure

Newell G. Bringhurst

Sestina of the Martyrdom

Mark D. Bennion

Critique of a Limited Geography for Book of Mormon Events

Earl M. Wunderli

Dialogue 35.3 (Fall 2003):127–168
DURING THE PAST FEW DECADES, a number of LDS scholars have developed various “limited geography” models of where the events of the Book of Mormon occurred. These models contrast with the traditional western hemisphere model, which is still the most familiar to Book of Mormon readers.

Form Criticism of Joseph Smith’s 1823 Vision of the Angel Moroni

Mark D. Thomas

A Uniform and Common Recollection: Joseph Smith’s Legacy, Polygamy, and the Creation of Mormon Public Memory

Stephen Taysom

Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, and the American Renaissance

Robert A. Rees

Dialogue 35.3 (Fall 2003):9a–128
I am a literary critic who has spent a professional lifetime reading, teaching, and writing about literary texts. Much of my interest in and approach to the Book of Mormon lies with the text—though not just as a field for scholarly exploration.

Prophecy and Palimpsest

Robert M. Price

The Earliest Eternal Sealing for Civilly Married Couples Living and Dead

Gary James Bergera

Martin Harris: The Kirtland Years, 1831-1870

H. Michael Marquardt

Joseph Smith, by Robert V. Remini

Paul Guajardo

A Biographer’s Burden: Evaluating Robert Remini’s Joseph Smith and Will Bagley’s Brigham Young

Newell G. Bringhurst

Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon

Robert M. Price

Dialogue 36.4 (Winter 2004):109–128
DID JOSEPH SMITH WRITE the Book of Mormon? To this over-familiar question the orthodox Latter-day Saint answer is a resounding “No” because the official belief is that a series of men with quasi-biblical names wrote the book over many centuries.

“There Really is a God and He Dwells in the Temporal Parietal Lobe of Joseph Smith’s Brain”

William J. Hamblin

Keywords: Joseph Smith, Language Change, and Theological Innovation, 1829-44

Jason H. Lindquist

The Open Canon and Innovation: Conflict in the Quorum: Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith by Gary James Bergera

Michael W. Homer

“He Was ‘Game'”: Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet by Dan Vogel

William D. Russell

By Any Standard, A Remarkable Book: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman with the assistance of Jed Woodworth

Marvin S. Hill

Two Perspectives on the Life and Times of Joseph Smith: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling by Richard Lyman Bushman with the Assistance of Jed Woodworth

Newell G. Bringhurst

Is Joseph Smith Relevant to the Community of Christ?

Roger D. Launius

Dialogue 39.4 (Winter 2006): 58–67
I spoke as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints/Community of Christ. As a result, I had a decidedly different perspective on Joseph Smith than my co-panelists.

The Diary of a Historian: On the Road With Joseph Smith by Richard Lyman Bushman

Marshall Hamilton

The Encounter of the Young Joseph Smith with Presbyterianism

John Matzko

Joseph Smith: Lost and Found

Jane Barnes

A Small History of Joseph Smith; Biography of Eugene England

(author)

Prophet, Seer, Revelator, American Icon Reid L. Neilson and Terryl L. Givens, eds., Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries

Kirsten M. Christensen

Joseph Smith in Hermeneutical Crisis

Christopher C. Smith

Joseph Smith as a Creative Interpreter of the Bible

Heikki Raisanen

Salvation through a Tabernacle: Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and Early Mormon Theologies of Embodiment

Benjamin E. Park

Dialogue 43.2 (Summer 2010): 1–44
A discussion of the theology of the body being combined with the spirit for various different reasons.

Joseph Smith’s Letter from Liberty Jail as an Epistolary Rhetoric

David Charles Gore

Making Visible the Hand of Ritual: Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, eds., Joseph Smith’s Quorum of the Anointed, 1842–1845: A Documentary History; Devery S. Anderson and Gary James Bergera, eds., The Nauvoo Endowment Companies, 1845–1846: A Docu

Stephen Taysom

(Re)Interpreting Early Mormon Thought: Synthesizing Joseph Smith’s Theology and the Process of Religion Formation

Benjamin E. Park

Samuel Morris Brown. In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death

Laurie Maffly-Kipp

Reviews: Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds. Journals, Volume 1: 1832–1839Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen, eds. Journals, Volume 2: December 1841–April 1843

Jonathan A. Stapley

Review: J. Spencer Fluhman. “A Peculiar People”:Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America

(author)

Joseph Smith, Captain Kidd Lore, and Treasure-Seeking in New York and New England during the Early Republic

Noel A. Carmack

Soul as Seen by Joseph Smith

Ronald Wilcox

Another Look at Joseph Smith’s First Vision

Stan Larson

Canto 12

Ronald Wilcox

The “Breathing Permit of Hor” Thirty-Four Years Later

Robert K. Ritner

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 91 – 119
In 1967, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for “The Book of Abraham.”

Joseph Smith’s Identification of “Abraham” in Papyrus: JS the “Breathing Permit of Hor”

Edward H. Ashment

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 91 – 119

In 1967, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York made a gift to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints of eleven papyrus fragments once owned by Joseph Smith and employed as the basis for “The Book of Abraham.”

The Book of Abraham and the Islamic Qisas al-Anbiya’ (Tales of the Prophets) Extant Literature

Bradley Cook

Dialogue 33.4 (Winter 2000): 137 – 146

“Perhaps the most controversial and intensely contested revelatory claim of Joseph Smith Jr. is his translation of ancient papyri ostensibly written by the hand of Abraham.”

Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham, and Joseph Smith as Translator

Karl C. Sandberg

Dialogue 22.4 (Winter 1989): 17 – 38
“The problem took another turn when Joseph Smith’s papyri, which had been missing and presumed lost for eighty to ninety years, resurfaced in 1967 and were examined and translated by Egyptologists. One fragment of papyrus was identified as the ostensible source of the Book of Abraham, but it bore no relationship to the Book of Abraham either in content or subject matter.”

Dialogue Topic Pages #1: First Vision

(author)

Dialogue is proud to launch a new monthly podcast series on the dialoguejournal.com/topicpages, exploring key issues in the history of LDS scholarship. Join host Taylor Petrey, editor of Dialogue and associate professor of religion at Kalamazoo…