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    The Book of Mormon: A Biography
    The Book of Mormon: A Biography
    The Book of Mormon: A Biography
    Ebook247 pages3 hours

    The Book of Mormon: A Biography

    By Paul C. Gutjahr

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    The surprising career of Joseph Smith's famous book

    Late one night in 1823 Joseph Smith, Jr., was reportedly visited in his family's farmhouse in upstate New York by an angel named Moroni. According to Smith, Moroni told him of a buried stack of gold plates that were inscribed with a history of the Americas' ancient peoples, and which would restore the pure Gospel message as Jesus had delivered it to them. Thus began the unlikely career of the Book of Mormon, the founding text of the Mormon religion, and perhaps the most important sacred text ever to originate in the United States. Here Paul Gutjahr traces the life of this book as it has formed and fractured different strains of Mormonism and transformed religious expression around the world.

    Gutjahr looks at how the Book of Mormon emerged from the burned-over district of upstate New York, where revivalist preachers, missionaries, and spiritual entrepreneurs of every stripe vied for the loyalty of settlers desperate to scratch a living from the land. He examines how a book that has long been the subject of ridicule—Mark Twain called it "chloroform in print"—has more than 150 million copies in print in more than a hundred languages worldwide. Gutjahr shows how Smith's influential book launched one of the fastest growing new religions on the planet, and has featured in everything from comic books and action figures to feature-length films and an award-winning Broadway musical.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateMar 25, 2012
    ISBN9781400841615
    The Book of Mormon: A Biography

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    • 4/5
      I've been thinking quite a bit about Mormonism lately, and realized that I really didn't know as much about it as I felt like I probably should. So I went on a bit of a buying spree, and one of the first titles to arrive was Paul Gutjahr's The Book of Mormon: A Biography (Princeton University Press, 2012). At less than 200 pages this is a very fast read (I read through the whole book in the early part of an evening), but Gutjahr provides a good overview of the Book of Mormon's origins, uses, themes, bibliographical and publishing history, illustrations, evolutions, and portrayals in popular culture.Gutjahr also offers a very good historiographical overview of how scholars, theologians, and different Mormon sects have studied and examined the Book of Mormon over time, and even digs into the questions of how the church hierarchy controls the translations and publishing of pretty much every copy of the Book of Mormon and other texts. And he analyzes imagery associated with the Book of Mormon, noting associations made between the text and pre-Columbian American cultural artifacts and imagery.Regardless of what one might think of it as religious gospel, the Book of Mormon is a book with an absolutely fascinating story of its own, and Gutjahr captures that very well. His thorough notes and bibliography have already yielded a few more sources I think I'll find interesting, and I've found myself fascinated by the textual and bibliographical evolutions in the text over time. Very much recommended for anyone interested in a wide-angle view of the Book of Mormon and its history.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Modern DNA analysis shows the history related in the Book of Mormon to be a monumental fraud. Native Americans are not related genetically to ancient Israelites. This critical fact is briefly mentioned in this book, but glossed over in this fawning "analysis."

      Interesting only as a history of how human beings can convince themselves of the truthiness of the most arrant nonsense.

    Book preview

    The Book of Mormon - Paul C. Gutjahr

    LIVES OF GREAT RELIGIOUS BOOKS

    The Book of Mormon

    LIVES OF GREAT RELIGIOUS BOOKS

    The Book of Mormon, Paul C. Gutjahr

    The Tibetan Book of the Dead, Donald S. Lopez, Jr.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Letters and Papers from Prison, Martin E. Marty

    The I Ching, Richard J. Smith

    Augustine’s Confessions, Garry Wills

    The Book of Revelation, Bruce Chilton

    Confucius’s Analects, Annping Chin and Jonathan D. Spence

    The Dead Sea Scrolls, John J. Collins

    The Bhagavad Gita, Richard H. Davis

    Josephus’s Jewish War, Martin Goodman

    John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bruce Gordon

    The Book of Genesis, Ronald S. Hendel

    The Book of Common Prayer, Alan Jacobs

    The Book of Job, Mark Larrimore

    C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity, George Marsden

    Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae, Bernard McGinn

    The Greatest Translations of All Time: The Septuagint and the Vulgate, Jack Miles

    The Passover Haggadah, Vanessa Ochs

    The Song of Songs, Ilana Pardes

    Rumi’s Masnavi, Omid Safi

    The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, David Gordon White

    The Book of Mormon

    A BIOGRAPHY

    Paul C. Gutjahr

    Copyright © 2012 by Princeton University Press

    Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,

    Princeton, New Jersey 08540

    In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street,

    Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TR

    press.princeton.edu

    Cover illustration by Daren Magee

    Cover design by Matt Avery / Monography

    All Rights Reserved

    First paperback printing, 2021

    Paperback ISBN 978-0-691-21765-9

    Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

    Gutjahr, Paul C., author.

    The Book of Mormon : a biography / Paul C. Gutjahr.

    pages cm — (Lives of great religious books)

    Includes bibliographical references and index.

    ISBN 978-0-691-14480-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)   1. Book of Mormon—History.   2. Book of Mormon—Criticism, interpretation, etc.   I. Title.   II. Series: Lives of great religious books.

    BX8627.G88 2012

    289.3’2—dc23

    2011044063

    British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available

    This book has been composed in Garamond Premier Pro

    Printed on acid-free paper. ∞

    Printed in the United States of America

    10   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

    For

    Robert Eric Brown

    (a.k.a. Bob)

    A great scholar, but an even greater friend

    Luke 8:15

    This book must be either true or false.

    If true, it is one of the most important

    messages ever sent from God to man.

    If false, it is one of the most cunning,

    wicked, bold, deep-laid impositions

    ever palmed upon the world, calculated

    to deceive and ruin millions who will

    receive it as the word of God.

    —ORSON PRATT, speaking of the

    Book of Mormon

    CONTENTS

    ILLUSTRATIONS

    Chart of records/plates

    Book of Mormon title page, 1830

    Joseph Smith Jr.

    Hill Cumorah and the three witnesses

    Book of Mormon and facsimile reproduction of the golden plates

    Sidney Rigdon

    Brigham Young

    James Strang

    Major Mormon migrations

    Joseph Smith III

    Important LDS editions of the Book of Mormon

    Title page, Deseret Alphabet edition of the Book of Mormon, 1869

    Orson Pratt

    Book of Mormon page formats, 1830 and 1920

    Hugh Nibley

    Ezra Taft Benson

    Possible Book of Mormon locations in Mesoamerica

    Reynolds, Ancient Aztec Chart Showing Lehi’s Travels

    Ottinger, Destruction of Zarahemla

    Stone idol frontispiece from Stephens’s Incidents of Travel

    Teichert, Treachery of Amalickiah

    Monte Alban from the 1963 edition of the Book of Mormon

    Friberg at work painting a Book of Mormon scene

    Friberg, Mormon Bids Farewell to a Once Great Nation

    Friberg, Nephi Subdues His Rebellious Brothers

    Scott, Jesus Christ Visits the Americas

    Golden Plates comic book cover

    The Life of Nephi silent motion picture still photo

    Corianton movie poster

    Corianton motion picture still

    Hill Cumorah Pageant

    The Book of Mormon, the Broadway musical

    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

    My journey to writing this book has been a long one. The Book of Mormon first captured my attention in the eighth grade when an immensely kind and intelligent literature teacher by the name of Giles Florence Jr. introduced me to it. Neither of us could have predicted that that introduction would initiate my nearly forty-year quest to understand what was once described to the early Mormon apostle Parley Pratt as a strange book, a VERY STRANGE BOOK!

    While Giles Florence may have been the first Mormon who befriended me, he certainly has not been the last. Countless others have followed in his footsteps, and many of those have done me great service in helping me write this book. Grant Smith, who suffered through graduate school with me, has been instrumental in bringing this book to completion. He carefully read and edited the entire manuscript before I submitted it to the Press. Not only is the book better because of his wisdom, but I am a better writer because of his unstinting generosity. Paul Westover also carefully read the manuscript, caught dozens of errors, made countless suggestions on how to improve the manuscript, and taught me a great deal I did not know about contemporary Mormon beliefs and practices. Also of help almost too great to measure was Grant Hardy, a scholar of such insight and generosity that I stand in awe of how much time and effort he put into this manuscript. Grant may not agree with all that fills the pages that follow, but I am convinced that it is a better book, and I am a better scholar, because of the time he invested in my work. These are debts I doubt I will ever be able to repay. These three scholars are living testimonies to the precious gift of academic fellowship and friendship.

    In the course of my research, I was aided by countless members of the LDS Church in Utah. Rob Jex was a model of kindness and professionalism. Without his help, important sections of this book could not have been written. Others also offered invaluable aid: Gerald Argetsinger, Berne Broadbent, Tod Harris, Mark Jarman, Michael Landon, and Michael vonRosen. Jack Welch and David Whittaker at Brigham Young University proved invaluable in helping me find source and illustrative material. Even with all this help, I wish to in no way imply that the views in this book, or any mistakes therein, might be attributed to anyone but myself.

    Friends outside the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints helped as well. I had a terrific editor in Fred Appel, who offered me the chance to write this book and then patiently supported me throughout the entire process. He enlisted two wonderful reviewers to read my manuscript. Their comments made the book much better. Jonathan Elmer, Christoph Irmscher, Richard Nash, Steve Stein, and Nick Williams all lent a hand at various times to help improve this book. Madeleine Gonin, Cordah Pearce, and Alex Teschmacher patiently helped me get the illustrations in order. Alex Van Riesen, as always, was there as a friend offering humor and encouragement along the way. In countless ways, my life is richer because of Alex’s presence in it.

    This book also benefited from the financial generosity of several funding sources. The Charles Redd Center for Western Studies awarded me their Fellowship in Western American History, which allowed me to make two research trips to the L. Tom Perry Special Collections of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. Indiana University also supported this project with two separate grants: a Research Grant-in-Aid from the College of Arts and Sciences to help with the costs of illustrations, and a Summer Research Fellowship from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, which enabled me to dedicate a summer to writing this book.

    While other individuals and institutions have shown great kindness in helping bring this book to completion, my family continues to be my greatest source of support. My wife, Cathy, and my two sons have all had to make sacrifices to help me complete my research on this book, and my gratitude and love for them exceed my every ability to put into words. My parents, and my sister, Karen, have also always been stalwart pillars of support. They continue to be my life’s greatest models of generosity and unconditional love.

    Finally, I dedicate this book to Bob Brown. Bob has been a close friend since our graduate school days together at the University of Iowa. For over two decades, he has been a listening ear, an insightful critic, and a faithful friend. We have suffered together through bad graduate seminars, terrible movies, not-so-festive strawberry festivals, and various office-remodeling projects completed under the cover of darkness. We have also shared dreams, moves, home improvement projects, vacations, as well as rounds of golf on some of the most run-down courses in the Midwest. True friends in life are rare. Rarer still are friends as kind, intelligent, and encouraging as Bob. Even as I type these words, I cannot help but smile. That is what Bob brings out in people: peace and joy. May this slender volume stand as a token of gratitude for a treasured friend who has enriched my life, the lives of my family, and my scholarly work in ways too numerous to count.

    Bloomington, Indiana

    August 2011

    A NOTE ON USAGE

    Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have a long tradition of referring to Joseph Smith Jr. simply as Joseph. Since my book involves a great many Smiths—including Alvin, Hyrum, William, Samuel, Lucy, Emma, Ethan, Joseph Smith Sr., and Joseph Smith III—I have chosen to refer to Mormonism’s founding prophet as Joseph for the sake of clarity.

    Germination

    PART I

    Now, we will compare the word unto a seed

    [which] may be planted in your heart

    —Alma 32:28

    Prologue

    In 1828, the directors of the twelve-year-old American Bible Society (ABS) set forth the audacious plan to provide every American household with a Bible. In a nation where only twenty years earlier publishers had been hard-pressed to produce two thousand copies of any given book, the ABS exerted its formidable will to undertake a breathtaking mission it named The General Supply.¹ Between 1829 and 1831 the ABS published and distributed an astounding half million copies of the scriptures in an attempt to touch the lives of each and every American with the word of God. In this way, the Bible became part of the very foundation of antebellum American print culture.

    While the ABS was seeking to bury the country under a mound of Bibles, a young farmer and day laborer named Joseph Smith Jr. was busy with a mound of his own. Claiming angelic guidance, Joseph unearthed a set of golden plates from a hill near his upstate New York home. Joseph would later announce that these were the Plates of Mormon, named after a fourth-century prophet and scribe. Mormon had set down the history of several once-mighty ancient American civilizations by copying, abridging, and adding to the records of scribes who for centuries had recorded the history of these peoples. Especially important for Mormon’s editorial and authorial purposes were the Plates of Nephi (which actually comprised two sets of plates known as the Small Plates of Nephi and the Large Plates of Nephi) and the Plates of Ether. Through considerable effort and hardship, Joseph translated the Reformed Egyptian writing he found on the Plates of Mormon, transforming their message into a new sacred scripture: the Book of Mormon.

    Chart of the different sets of plates adapted from Book of Mormon Plates and Records, in Reexploring the Book of Mormon, ed. John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1992), 17.

    When the Book of Mormon first appeared in 1830, it echoed the Bible in many ways. It was a small, yet imposing, octavo volume containing nearly six hundred pages of text.² Its size and binding style strikingly resembled the most common Bible editions then being passionately produced and distributed by the ABS, and its narrative was full of religious ritual, sacred commandments, and wondrous stories of divine intervention.³

    The Book of Mormon differed from the Bible in other ways, offering information found nowhere in the traditional biblical narrative. It tells the story of three family groups who travel from the ancient Middle East to the Americas. A small portion of the book traces the history of Jared and his descendants from their departure after the failure of the Tower of Babel around 2500 BCE to their decline around 300 BCE.⁴ The majority of the book’s content describes the family of Lehi, who left the land of Jerusalem around 600 BCE.⁵ This family divides into warring factions named after two of Lehi’s sons: Nephi and Laman. Around 420 CE, the Lamanites destroy the Nephites only to see their own civilization collapse. The few Lamanite survivors will later evolve into various Native American tribes. The last group, led by Mulek, is barely mentioned. It travels to the Americas at roughly the same time as Lehi and eventually merges with the Nephites.

    Title page from the first edition of the Book of Mormon (1830), including Joseph Smith Jr.’s identification of himself as the work’s author and proprietor. Courtesy Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

    In all, the plates that Joseph used for his translation claimed to offer a historical account that began around the middle of the third millennium BCE and reached up to roughly the fifth century CE. They are named after one of the Nephites’ final scribes, Mormon, who is represented as having done the greater part of the work of writing, editing, and redacting a large collection of records into the set of plates that Joseph later translated. Mormon’s work was completed by his son Moroni, the last known survivor of the once-great Nephite nation. After finishing his work, Moroni buried the plates in what later came to be known as the Hill Cumorah, a prominent point of elevated land near Joseph’s upstate New York home. In the early 1820s, centuries after his death, Moroni appeared to Joseph in angelic form, announcing that God had chosen Joseph to recover and translate the Plates of Mormon so that a new age of revelation might begin on the earth.

    One of the most distinctive elements of the Book of Mormon is its Old Testament historical feel coupled with a distinct focus on Jesus Christ, thereby conflating the Christian Bible’s Old and New Testaments. On its title page, the Book of Mormon announces that it exists, in part, to convince the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting Himself unto all nations.⁶ Undergirding this self-proclaimed mandate, the volume records revelations given to the Nephites as early as 600 BCE concerning the birth, life, and sacrificial death of Jesus as the Messiah.⁷ The Book of Mormon’s Christology is complex and detailed. It reaches its fullest manifestation in Jesus appearing to the Nephites after his death and resurrection in the Middle East. Descending from heaven, a man clad in white announces, "I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall

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