Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling [Paperback]

Richard Lyman Bushman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 13, 2007

Founder of the largest indigenous Christian church in American history, Joseph Smith published the 584-page Book of Mormon when he was twenty-three and went on to organize a church, found cities, and attract thousands of followers before his violent death at age thirty-eight. Richard Bushman, an esteemed cultural historian and a practicing Mormon, moves beyond the popular stereotype of Smith as a colorful fraud to explore his personality, his relationships with others, and how he received revelations. An arresting narrative of the birth of the Mormon Church, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling also brilliantly evaluates the prophet’s bold contributions to Christian theology and his cultural place in the modern world.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. How should a historian depict a man's life when that man, and his religion, remain a mystery to so many 200 years after his birth? Bushman, an emeritus professor at Columbia University and author of Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, greatly expands on that previous work, filling in many details of the founding prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and carrying the story through to the end of Smith's life. Many continue to view Smith as an enigmatic and controversial figure. Bushman locates him in his historical and cultural context, fleshing out the many nuances of 19th-century American life that produced such a fertile ground for emerging religions. The author, a practicing Mormon, is aware that his book stands in the intersection of faith and scholarship, but does not avoid the problematic aspects of Smith's life and work, such as his practice of polygamy, his early attempts at treasure-seeking and his later political aspirations. In the end, Smith emerges as a genuine American phenomenon, a man driven by inspiration but not unaffected by his cultural context. This is a remarkable book, wonderfully readable and supported by exhaustive research. For anyone interested in the Mormon experience, it will be required reading for years to come. (Oct. 10)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New Yorker

Joseph Smith claimed that he was visited by an angel who gave him golden plates from which he transcribed the Book of Mormon, and he had organized a church before he was twenty-five. His personal charisma and his administrative genius helped spread Mormonism throughout the Western United States, turning the sect into a legislative federation complete with social and political institutions. There were always those who thought Smith a charlatan and a fanatic, and, in 1844, at the age of thirty-eight, he was fatally shot by an angry mob. Bushman is both an emeritus professor of history at Columbia and a practicing Mormon, and his exhaustive biography carefully treads a path between reverence and objectivity, as when he investigates the phenomenon of "plural marriage"; Smith, in order to establish "a Righteous race . . . uppon the Earth," had more than thirty wives.
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 784 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; Later printing edition (March 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400077532
• ISBN-13: 978-1400077533
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (130 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,715 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #71 in Books > Christian Books & Bibles > Mormonism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

342 of 372 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truth sometimes really is stranger than fiction., July 26, 2006

By 

J. Swift (New Castle, IN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Hardcover)

I would like to start the review admitting I am not a Mormon. I love biographies of great people in history. I read "No man knows my History" by Fawn Brodie. I came on that book by accident. And I realize from some of the reviews on Amazon that Mormons dont like that book much. I thought it was great, but admit that she paints Joseph Smith in a negative light sometimes. But I could still see through enough to see a great man behind her attacks on his character.

"Rough Stone Rolling" is the exact opposite of that book. Richard Bushman uses a lot of the same stories but doesnt have the same negative slant. But he still shows that Joseph Smith was not perfect, which I admire. This is the best biography I have ever read.

This book takes you all through Joseph Smith's life. From a farmboy in New York who got on his knees and asked God to show him the way, to the man who was gunned down in Carthage a martyr for his calling.

If he was a Prophet or not is up for debate. As a Christian I believe that God is real and God can still speak today. Before I read the history of Joseph Smith if someone asked me if he was a prophet, I would have said no. After reading up on the man I would answer that it is not out of the realm of possibility. I believe he believed he was a prophet. I believe that some unexplainable things happened around him and the early Church.

The question was he a great man or not has been settled in my mind at least. I think he was a great man. To be tared and feathered and beaten, and still preach that next morning. To take persecutions and imprisionment in stride, to never compromise what you believe even in the face of death. These things are the very definition of a great man. The fact he put people off sometimes because he played with children and liked to wrestle and have fun. I think it just shows a genuine human being. His great love for his people caused many of his mistakes in life. Like the idea of everybody having everything in common, and his business dealings. Everything he did was with his people in mind. He not only talked the talk but walked the walk. I encourage everyone to read this book. If for nothing else than read a well written, entertaining biography of a real person that is more interesting than fiction. Good day.

289 of 317 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Warts and All, November 12, 2005

By 

R. W. Rasband (Heber City, UT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Hardcover)

It's hard to overestimate just how much Richard Bushman's long-awaited biography of Joseph Smith has been eagerly anticipated by Mormon readers. Now that it's finally here it would be only natural if it didn't live up to expectations. The thing is--it's just as good as we all hoped it would be. "Rough Stone Rolling" is the culmination of almost forty years of what has been called "the new Mormon history." It's impossible for LDS writers to be objective about Joseph given his place in LDS history, so Bushman aims for balance and candor and succeeds brilliantly.

When I was growing up as a Mormon I have to admit that much of the LDS writing about Joseph was an obstacle to my faith. According to many he was a ideal man without flaw, a sort of 19th-century superhero. This made him a papier-mache saint that was impossible to relate to on a human level. Bushman describes a man who trusted the wrong people at times; was hotheaded, impulsive, and contentious; couldn't abide personal criticism; was a lousy businessman--in short, a man with familiar human foibles. On the other hand he had a large, open heart, an expansive view of human possibilities, and an almost scary insight into the religious quandries of our lives. He was able to convince many, many others that the heavens had been opened. Much of 19th century Protestantism seemed spiritually dead as a stone; Joseph and his followers believed he had restored the flow of revelation that had existed in Biblical times. He became a prophet in a distinctly American vein.

Perhaps his most famous line for non-Mormons was "no man knows my history; if I hadn't lived it I wouldn't have believed it myself." Bushman captures the sheer mystical mystery of Joseph's life. Watching Bushman's Joseph is a little like watching William Blake or even Joan of Arc: how such miraculous things happened still can't be fully explained in this life and one can only marvel at what has been left behind. Bushman's explication of the Book of Mormon is as searching and fascinating as we are likely to get, and yet it only scratches the surface of this American scripture. Joseph came to personify will and energy, and with the sheer force of history turned America into the promised land. From now on, all future attempts to write about Joseph will have to deal with Bushman.

127 of 138 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joseph Smith - Quintessential American, August 29, 2007

By 

Fr Phillip Bloom "parish priest" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (Hardcover)

Desiring some basic understanding of Mormonism, I asked a priest friend from Utah to recommend a book. He said that it is hard to find a good book because writings on Mormonism tend to be either Mormon propaganda or anti-Mormon attacks. He did mention that a lot of people were reading *Under the Banner of Heaven* by Jon Krakauer. It turned out be a slash-and-burn attack not only on Mormonism, but religion in general. Shortly after reading Krakauer's book, I discovered *Rough Stone Rolling.* What a contrast! And what an amazing accomplishment! As both a practicing Mormon and a Columbia University professor, Dr. Bushman enables an outsider (like myself) to appreciate the life and times of Joseph Smith.

Before commenting on *Rough Stone Rolling,* I want to make an obvious (but necessary) disclaimer: As a Catholic I do not accept the basic thesis of Mormonism - namely, that Jesus founded a Church and then allowed it to fall into apostasy until a nineteenth century American named Joseph Smith restored it. Mormons believe that, with the death of the last apostle, the Church also died. Catholics, by contrast, believe that the pope and bishops are successors of the apostles.

With that disclaimer in mind, I must say that Dr. Bushman helped me appreciate the great genius of Joseph Smith. At a time when rationalism was robbing people of a direct experience of God, Smith convincingly presented himself as a prophet and wanted others to have similar revelations from God. But he also recognized the need for authority to prevent individual revelations from fracturing the community. In the process he set up structures very familiar to Catholics: a priesthood, a hierarchy with one final authority and rituals which connect believers to divine mysteries. *Rough Stone Rolling* details the steps involved in the creation of a church that would impact the lives of millions of people.

Joseph Smith lived only thirty-eight years, but he had a greater long-term influence than any nineteenth century American. In some ways he was the quintessential American. Emerging from very humble origins, Smith embodies the American ideal of the self-made man. And he had democracy deep his bones: Notwithstanding his extraordinary revelations, he did not put on airs; he wanted all of his follower to receive revelations. Above all, Joseph Smith was a quintessential American in his can-do spirit. Build the heavenly Zion here on earth? No problem. Let's do it right here in Missouri. And when they drove him out of Missouri, he started over again in Illinois with an even bolder vision. That is the American spirit - and Joseph Smith incarnated it to the nth degree.

As Bushman brings out in great detail, Joseph Smith not only had faith in his personal revelations; he had great faith in his country and its constitution. Even when that country treated him badly, he kept faith that its institutions would bring him vindication. In the end the legal system and its officers failed him and he died at the hands of a mob while being held in the Carthage, IL, jail.

Joseph Smith's life provides much material for reflection. I would like to mention two areas that particularly called my attention. The first relates to Joseph Smith's "can do" spirit. It has a downside: a peculiar blindness to the reality of man's fallen nature (original sin). Bushman describes Smith as someone who underestimated the evil in his enemies, his followers - and himself. It came out most dramatically in the shameful treatment of his wife. He tried to give Emma everything, but in the end he did not give her what he had pledged and what she most desired: Joseph himself.

A second question *Rough Stone Rolling* raises is how we as a society accommodate people who have very different beliefs. Can we appeal to a "natural law" which binds everyone? I believe we can. For example, that it is wrong to defraud, break a contract, physically harm or take an innocent human life. Also, I believe, we can argue from the basis of the natural law that marriage is an institution that binds one man and one woman in a life-long and exclusive union. At the same time, I am concerned that our society is falling into what Pope Benedict called a "dictatorship of relativism." That is, many people have despaired of articulating a natural law applicable to all - and instead feel that the only thing we have left is a kind of mob rule, where matters are decided simply on the basis of who (or what group) is most powerful politically. The life of Joseph Smith - and his continuing influence among Mormons - provides a dramatic test case for these important questions. And it appears that, if we continue to move in the direction of a dictatorship of relativism, Catholics, Mormons and other people of faith, will have many occasions to stand together for the rights of conscience.