Mormons

Earlier during the 1820s and 1830s one of the most striking purveyors of visions in antebellum America was Joseph Smith, Jr. ^{31Hans J. Hillerbrand, A New History of Christianity (Nashville: Abingdon, 2012), 291, 292.} Born in 1805 into a farming family, he later recollected that before his fifteenth birthday he had prayed to God to direct him to the true church. The divine response, in the form of a vision, told him that there was no such church. Even the early Christian church had lost its purity. Instead, as he was told in vision, God would bring about the much-needed reforms. In later visions, most notably in September 1823, he met an angel by the name of Moroni, who confided to him the existence of golden plates hidden under a nearby rock. Four years later the apparition occurred again, with additional instruction to take the plates and translate them into English. He translated them while sitting behind a curtain. Smith took Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and David Whitmer (known as the Three Witnesses), who confided that they had seen the golden plates. ^{32Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 78.}GOP 241.1

Once the translation was completed, the Book of Mormon, as it came to be known, stretched over some 600 pages. It gave an account of the migration of the lost tribes of Israelites to America. They in turn were visited by Jesus Christ, who offered to them a word of salvation. The great warrior Mormon, who died in the fifth century, wrote down the story on golden plates. They laid hidden until discovered by Joseph Smith, Jr., 1,500 years later. The claims to visions, along with the translation of the golden plates, became immediately controversial. Outsiders were not allowed to view the golden plates, but advocates argued that how could a man with no formal education be able to write such a book. Yet for Smith’s followers the answer was that a miracle had occurred. Opposition to his message forced the fledgling group, numbering about 10,000 by the 1840s, westward to Ohio and Illinois, and after his death in 1844, the majority relocated to Utah.GOP 241.2

Smith was innovative in terms of his understanding of progressive revelation. He believed the new revelations superseded all previous revelations. While he recognized the divine origins of the Bible, Smith believed that his writings were necessary in order to interpret the biblical canon. In doing so, he set a precedent whereby subsequent Mormon leaders had authority to reveal divine truth.GOP 241.3