The Essential Joseph Smith (Classics in Mormon Thought Series) [Hardcover]

Joseph Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 1995 | Series: Classics in Mormon Thought Series (Book 4)

As illuminating as commentaries are, nothing conveys Joseph Smith's character like his own unadulterated words. In his distinctive language a mix of biblical and frontier idioms and in his famously spontaneous humor, one can imagine him speaking and feeling the force of his charisma. Like Old Testament prophets, he was alternately contemplative and poetic, animated and surprisingly earthy. Previous, popular editions of Smith's speeches and writings have edited out the extemporaneous complexities, as well as any deviations from present-day doctrines. Recent academic publications, for their part, have too often camouflaged the text in scholarly apparata. By contrast, this volume brings together a sampling of the prophet's thinking from New York to Illinois in a complete, unabridged form, utilizing the earliest known sources, without excessive footnoting or commentary. No attempt is made to harmonize disparate, conflicting ideas. Readers can trace the developing, revelatory unfolding of ideas for themselves. They can also enjoy the text without reference to any intrerpretative agenda. In other words, The Essential Joseph Smith is readable and reliable. Bracketed material and punctuation are added where needed, but the text otherwise speaks for itself. These are Joseph Smith's own words, his most essential messages.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Fifty selected documents of Joseph Smith are presented here as a readable, chronological overview of the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Through letters, diary entries, speeches, and revelations, editor Hill (history emeritus, Brigham Young Univ.) traces the development of the Mormon Church and Smith's leadership growth. An excellent foreword by Hill specifically addresses Smith's contradictions and controversies. The original text is clarified with bracketed insertions of missing words and punctuation, but the attempt to present Smith's messages as originally written is most successful. A prefatory note placing the document into context would have been helpful, but overall, this is a well-researched and -presented survey of primary source material. A valuable addition to larger collections of 19th-century American history, as well as most collections of religious history.?Diane H. Albosta, Episcopal H.S. Lib., Alexandria, Va.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

Fifty selected documents of Joseph Smith are presented here as a readable, chronological overview of the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Through letters, diary entries, speeches, and revelations, the book traces the development of the Mormon Church and Smith's leadership growth. An excellent foreword by Hill (history emeritus, Brigham Young University) specifically addresses Smith's contradictions and controversies. The original text is clarified with bracketed insertions of missing words and punctuation, but the attempt to present Smith's messages as originally written is most successful. A prefatory note placing the document into context would have been helpful, but overall, this is a well-researched and -presented survey of primary source material. A valuable addition to larger collections of 19th-century American history, as well as most collections of religious history. --Diane H. Albosta, Library Journal

Joseph Smith's intrinsic interest to readers of New York History endures. The Mormon prophet's early life and the revelations that led to publication of The Book of Mormon shed light not only on the Second Great Awakening in the Bumed-Over District, but as well on the origins of a major religion founded in New York, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Current scholars, moreover, have taken more interest in Smith and early Mormonism as part of a renewed emphasis on religion as a determining factor in American history. The question then is whether this fourth volume in the Classics in Mormon Thought Series offers a new dimension to the growing literature on one of America's few home-grown religions. According to the publisher, The Essential Joseph Smith is meant as a kind of starter volume with a dual purpose. For one, this collection of fifty works by Smith, eclectic and spanning his entire public life (1829-1844), will introduce neophytes to a microcosm of the prophet's central "intellectual explorations" (p. xi). Secondly, in contrast to other collections, these writings remain largely unedited and thus reveal the essential Joseph Smith in another way, with "the contradictions, digressions or occasional earthiness" (p. xiv) remaining. These fifty documents present Joseph Smith's thinking in a variety of contexts, from revelations on doctrine to wondering from a lonely jail cell why his first wife, Emma, had not written to him. Smith's concerns range from the theological (including such controversial issues as polygamy and baptism of the dead), to the pragmatic (the structure and governance of the church), and the personal (the welfare of his children and relationships with siblings). The collection is weighted toward theological issues; exactly half of the documents are sermons and another four concern revelations and visions. The thirteen letters include five to family members, three of which are to Emma. A letter to fellow leader Oliver Cowdery illustrates the publisher's desire to present the unedited Smith, who after a visit to Kirtland, Ohio, by abolitionists described the Biblical origins of slavery and hoped that Southerners would not consider all Northerners as abolitionists. Time-wise, the collection includes one letter from 1829, twenty-six from the 1830s, and the remainder from 1840 through Smith's murder in 1844. Nearly one-third date from the last two years of his life. Marvin S. Hill's brief Foreword presents examples of contrasting interpretations of Smith in his own day and suggests that present-day Mormons perhaps sometimes expect too much of the prophet. Unfortunately, although Hill is an academic historian, he adds nothing to help readers with the documents themselves, either in terms of their contemporary contexts or historiographically. Indeed, readers will wish for some assistance, at least in the form of explanatory notes and a bibliography of suggested additional publications to which they might turn. Also, a chronology of Smith's life and the many moves of the early Mormon church would help to contextualize the sources and sort out some confusion for the reader new to the subject. One wonders, too, about the retention of "editorial insertions" (p. xiv) in some of the previously published documents, since the book aims to present Smith's works as they appeared. In sum, this volume will enable general readers to sample an eclectic core of Joseph Smith's works and to get a flavor of the Mormon founder's writing and thinking. However,. scholars and all who wish for scholarly context, will turn to one of four more complete editions of Smith's writings published in the 1980s as part of the new Mormon history. --Kathleen Smith Kutolowski, New York History

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 294 pages
• Publisher: Signature Books (July 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941214710
• ISBN-13: 978-0941214711
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,221,781 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better Primary Source Volumes are Available Elsewhere, October 7, 2005

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Essential Joseph Smith (Classics in Mormon Thought Series) (Hardcover)

"The Essential Joseph Smith" is a moderately interesting book that provides a convenient source for several documents from the Mormon founder. Presented in this book are fifty speeches or letters by Joseph Smith Jr. prepared between 1829 and his death in 1844. Although a reasonably useful compendium of his thought, more adequate collections have been published in recent years and one must question the rationale for the appearance of an¬other. This work contains neither introductions that provide context nor explanatory notes with information on key events, passages, or people. A foreword by Marvin S. Hill provides a general, but exceed¬ingly elementary, account of Smith's career.

Authoritative editions of Smith's writings and speeches--especially "The Papers of Joseph Smith," edited by Dean C. Jessee (2 vols., 1989-1992); "The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith," edited by Dean C. Jessee (1984); "An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journal of Joseph Smith," edited by Scott H. Faulring (1987); and "The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph," edited by-Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (1980)--are available and more useful than this book. Furthermore, a massive effort is underway to prepare a multi-volume, authoritative edition of Joseph Smith's papers for publication, and all students of Mormon history eagerly await its availibility.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Introduction to Joseph Smith, June 7, 2001

By 

Steve Jackson "stevejackson100atyahoocom" (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Essential Joseph Smith (Classics in Mormon Thought Series) (Hardcover)

Joseph Smith (1805-1844) was one of the most important men in American religious history. It was Smith who gave birth to the religious movement known as Mormonism, the largest representative of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, headquartered in Utah. This is a handy collection of Smith's writings and sermons. It is particularly valuable because it is arranged in chronological order. Therefore, you can see the development of his thought from a more-or-less orthodox monotheism to polytheism. This is best seen in the famous (or notorious) "King Follet Discourse" which dates from the end of Smith's life. Smith sets forth his Gnostic approach to theology: "For we have imagined that God was God from the beginning of all eternity. I will refute that idea . . . . He was once a man like one of us . . . ." [p. 235.] Those who consider Mormonism a quirky offshoot of orthodox Christianity ought to read this sermon. This book has a couple of flaws - it lacks a good introduction and notes concerning people and events mentioned in the documents.