Historian John Turner’s new biography of Joseph Smith portrays the Prophet as charismatic, flawed, and relentlessly dynamic. His conclusions often differ from those in Richard Bushman’s Rough Stone Rolling, offering a new perspective. Turner approaches Joseph’s spiritual claims with scholarly caution, adopting different stances based on his interpretation of the evidence. He writes there is “little reason to doubt” that Joseph saw the Lord in the First Vision, yet personally concludes that the gold plates weren’t real. In this interview, Turner reflects on Smith’s life—from the Prophet’s unifying vision of Zion to the divisive impact of polygamy.
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Table of Contents
- Writing About Joseph
- Leadership and Personality
- Revelation and Scripture
- Polygamy and Doctrine
- Marytrdom and Legacy
- Book Quotes
Understanding Joseph Smith as a Biography Subject
How does Joseph Smith’s quote about “proving contraries” apply to writing his biography?
Tough quote! And worth unpacking for a moment. It’s from a letter to Daniel Rupp, who sent Joseph Smith a copy of his History of the Religious Denominations at Present Existing in the United States. (The Church contributed a chapter on the “Latter Day Saints” under Joseph’s name).
In the letter, Joseph thanks Rupp for a copy of his book and praises “the wisdom of letting every sect tell its own story.” Joseph acknowledges that “all is not gold that shines,” just as “every religion’s creed is not sanctioned with the sure word of prophecy.”
Yet, when encountering contrary teachings, one can test them. And one can do that even without contemporary prophecy. Joseph explained that:
[A] wise man can search out the ‘old paths,’ wherein righteous men held communion with Jehovah, and were exalted through obedience, which is better than, easier than by mens made [man-made] creeds.
Joseph Smith, June 5, 1844 letter to Daniel Rupp
So the idea isn’t directly applicable to Joseph Smith, but the general principle pertains to the historian’s task.
There are all sorts of contrary opinions about Joseph. Yes, we should test them against the available evidence. But I would say that a biographer’s task isn’t first and foremost to sift those contrary opinions. It’s to immerse oneself in the historical record and in the world in which Joseph Smith inhabited. In order to do that well, one has to set aside some of those contemporary “contraries”—at least for a time.
Why do we have so many documents about Joseph Smith, but still know so little?
I like a quote from the late, great novelist Hilary Mantel:
Evidence is always partial … History is not the past. It’s the record of what’s left on the record.
Hilary Mantel
That’s so true! It’s easy to forget this.
If you glance at the Joseph Smith Papers published volumes, you see these massive tomes stuffed with documents, journals, letters, histories, and accounts of sermons. But even for the best-documented years of Joseph Smith’s life, it’s necessarily fragmentary.
And then there are the less-documented periods of his life. For instance, any reconstruction of Joseph’s childhood relies on the history dictated by Lucy Mack Smith in the mid-1840s. It’s a great but flawed source, and Joseph said relatively little about his early years.
Two Examples
- He was silent about the Book of Mormon translation process. Joseph declined to speak in any detail about the process by which he produced the Book of Mormon, and very few documents from the late 1820s are extant.
- He left behind very few records about polygamy. There are many materials that document Joseph’s practice of plural marriage, but few originate from Joseph Smith, leaving us with a limited ability to understand and interpret his experience of plural marriage.
Personality, Leadership, and Lived Religion
How did Joseph Smith describe his own flaws and approach to righteousness?
“He said he was but a man and they must not expect him to be perfect,” according to William Clayton’s account of an October 1842 discourse. He made similar comments on several occasions.
Sometimes, Joseph Smith simply meant that he wasn’t a typical Presbyterian or Methodist minister. He was rougher and sometimes cruder in speech, and he thought it was better that men be charitable and kind than proper. He had no tolerance for outward righteousness from religious hypocrites.
But Joseph Smith also meant that he had his “infirmities.” He wasn’t one to publicly dwell on his mistakes and missteps, but he acknowledged them—at least obliquely.
Muslims understand prophets as being free from sin. As far as I know, that’s never been Latter-day Saint doctrine. The Bible, after all, is full of deeply flawed leaders who nevertheless function as God’s appointed patriarchs, judges, kings, and prophets.
I think it’s much easier for Christians to stomach moral flaws in ancient figures whose lives are not as accessible to us.
Why did Joseph Smith say friendship was the “grand fundamental principle” of Mormonism?
This is another great quote, and one for which context helps. Joseph Smith made the remark in a discourse on July 23, 1843. The previous week, he had observed that he wouldn’t prophesy any longer and that his brother Hyrum Smith should be the prophet.
Joseph’s comment confused and concerned the Saints, and a week later, he reassured them that he had spoken ironically. He wasn’t renouncing being a prophet, but he reminded the congregation that “here we learn in a priesthood after the order of Melchisedek,” who was king of Salem and priest of the most high God.
Joseph likewise could “advance from prophet to priest and then to King.”
(I digress a bit, but so did Joseph Smith!)
It irked Joseph when church members found fault with him, turned on him, or questioned his teachings. Certainly, as he said in the discourse on July 23, 1843, hundreds, even thousands of Saints were ready to lay down their lives for him.
Many people abandoned him when he needed them most.
At the same time, there were others who “when they discover a weakness in brother Joseph blast his character.” He bore with the infirmities of others, but many people abandoned him when he needed them most.
Those reflections brought Joseph Smith to what have become famous words:
I see no faults in the church. Let me be resurrected with the saints whether to heaven or hell or any other good place. Good society. What do we care if the society is good? [I] don’t care what a character is if he’s my friend. A friend [is] a true friend, and I will be a friend to him. Friendship is the grand fundamental principle of Mormonism.
Joseph Smith, July 23, 1843 discourse (as reported by Willard Richards)
What Joseph meant is that loyalty is a key component of friendship. A true friendship would stand all tests, and friends should not dwell upon each other’s faults.
Why did some early Mormon teachings strain “friendships”?
Some obvious teachings, like plural marriage, fall into this category. But more broadly, I would point to another factor: Joseph Smith sometimes lived up to his promise not to dwell on the faults or even serious transgressions of others.
For instance, he welcomed Orson Hyde and William Phelps back into the fold after their respective apostasies.
At other times, though, Joseph’s treatment of his friends deeply wounded them. Examples include Joseph’s financial dealings with Parley Pratt in Kirtland and his interactions with Sarah and Orson Pratt in Nauvoo.
In what ways did Joseph Smith share the racial views of his time—and where did he diverge?
Here’s what I wrestled with when thinking about this subject.
On the one hand, Joseph Smith appears to have been keenly interested in race. It’s an important theme in the Book of Mormon, his expansion of the early chapters of Genesis, and the Book of Abraham. His thinking on subjects such as the mark of Cain and the curse of Ham intersected with the views of many white American Christians.
At the same time, these questions were more of an episodic than a constant concern for Joseph. These aren’t subjects that come up frequently in his sermons or journals. Joseph’s ideas about Native peoples moved in ways that were less common in the United States at that time.
At times, his ideas about individuals of African descent were relatively progressive, which seems at odds with some of the above-mentioned texts. He endorsed Elijah Abel as a priesthood holder and minister of the Gospel.
And, perhaps most strikingly, his 1844 presidential campaign platform called for an expanded United States entirely free of slavery. (I wouldn’t push this egalitarian depiction of Joseph too far. As a city, Nauvoo prohibited black men from voting, holding civic office, and performing military service, and Joseph once fined two black men for intending to marry white women.)
Revelation, Scripture, and Spiritual Experience
Does your view that Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon account for its complexity?
I don’t claim to be an expert on the Book of Mormon, though I have read it several times with some care. But I grant your point about the complexities. As Richard Bushman observes in Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates:
Plates abound, record-keeping is an obsession, and modern researchers need to get it straight.
Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History
It’s a lot to keep straight. But not so much as to convince me that Joseph Smith couldn’t have authored it.
I’m not closed to the idea…
You could say that I have a very high opinion of Joseph’s intelligence and biblical literacy! And I’m not closed to the idea that Joseph proceeded under some sort of divine inspiration that simultaneously made lots of space for his own imagination and ideas.
I cherish passages in the Book of Mormon despite being an outsider to the tradition.
If Joseph Smith did nothing else in his life but dictate 2 Nephi 2…
Why did Joseph Smith respond so strongly to the loss of the 116 pages?
Broader Circumstances
Step back and consider both the broader and immediate circumstances of Joseph Smith’s life at this time. It had been an incredibly tumultuous several years. The Smith family had lost its farm. Joseph had been on trial for “glass-looking.” He had married Emma Hale over the opposition of her father.
But he had no clear direction or prospects. Then he retrieved the golden plates, recruited Martin Harris as a benefactor, and returned to Harmony with Emma.
Immediate Circumstances
Now to the immediate circumstances. After dictating the start of a manuscript with Harris as his scribe, Joseph permitted Harris to return to Palmyra and show it to a select number of people. Shortly thereafter Emma gave birth to her first child, a son who lived for at most a few hours after delivery. Emma herself was close to death. So Joseph was already full of emotion when he set off for Palmyra to retrieve his manuscript from Harris.
And whether one leans into a faithful or more skeptical interpretation of these events, there was a lot at stake for Joseph in the translation.
How can we understand moments when Joseph claimed divine authority versus when he seemed to improvise?
That’s a great question. I address it in the introduction to my biography and at a few points in the story.
Here’s a taste of what I say at the outset:
In the end, historians cannot differentiate between genuine and insincere religious experiences with confidence. ‘Fact is,’ says a character in Herman Melville’s The Confidence-Man, “when all is bound up together, it’s sometimes confusing.” It is better to narrate and interpret what Smith preached and practiced instead of pretending to discern his inner feelings at any given moment.
John Tuner, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet
I resist the idea that if Smith ever improvised that it means he was a fraud through and through. I don’t think it’s that simple.
I also love Laurie Maffly-Kipp’s smart point that scholars don’t hold politicians or entrepreneurs to the same standards of sincerity and probity as they do religious leaders. The latter, however, can be just as fallible and malleable without necessarily being unadmirable.
There’s a lovely letter from Joseph to Emma from June 1832. In it, he writes about going into the woods to pray amid loneliness and stresses his desire to be with Christ. It seems very heartfelt and sincere.
By contrast, Joseph Smith once scribbled a revelation on a scrap of paper and tossed it to a man opposing him at a Nauvoo city council meeting. That doesn’t seem so sincere.
But in either case, we don’t ultimately know:
- Joseph knew that other people would read his letter to Emma. Did he curate his spiritual experiences in order to make a positive impression on those readers? Quite possibly.
- And if Joseph believed that he was a prophet and seer, why couldn’t he jot down a revelation on the spur of the moment?
I take some clear stands in the book. Joseph didn’t possess golden plates with an ancient record on them. Joseph experienced visions of divine beings. But I didn’t think it was my task to assess whether or not Joseph Smith sincerely believed that every message he dictated or vocalized was from God.
Why didn’t Joseph Smith make greater use of George Watt’s transcription skills in Nauvoo?
The simplest answer to that question is that George Watt didn’t emigrate and reach Nauvoo until the spring of 1843, so there wasn’t much time for him to gain Joseph Smith’s confidence and employ.
Nevertheless, Joseph placed greater emphasis on having his words preserved during the last several years of his life, with Willard Richards, William Clayton, and Thomas Bullock (I have a personal love for Bullock’s handwriting and shorthand abbreviations).
Thus, we have multiple accounts of many significant sermons, such as the King Follett Discourse and the June 16, 1844, “sermon in the grove.”
And I love the fact that these sermons showcase not just Joseph Smith’s doctrinal development but also his personality.
Consider this snippet from the latter discourse:
it is a strange God any how 3 in 1. & 1 in 3. it is a curious thing any how… all are to be crammed into 1 God— it wod. make the biggest God in all the world— he is a wonderful big God— he would be a Giant.
Joseph Smith, June 16, 1844 discourse
I wish Bullock had inserted “[laughter]” after “Giant,” for surely the congregation laughed.
Polygamy and Doctrinal Development
What have you learned about Joseph Smith’s private practice and public denials of polygamy?
This is a huge topic, although I’m not all that interested in the public denials. Joseph Smith and his close associates had obvious motivations for engaging in those denials. Polygamy had the potential to foment both external opposition and internal dissent, as illustrated by the first six months of 1844.
My challenge was doing justice to the subject.
Let me say here that I write quite a bit about the thirty-some sealings during the last several years of Joseph’s life. This was a central goal and preoccupation for Joseph during those years. Fortunately, there are many illuminating sources, some contemporary and others retrospective, such as the testimony of plural wives such as Zina Huntington and the Partridge sisters, and the journal of William Clayton.
There’s also the diligent research by scholars such as Brian Hales and Todd Compton. My challenge was doing justice to the subject without writing a giant biography.
Why was polygamy central to Joseph Smith’s theology but lacking a clear rationale?
Joseph Smith’s July 1843 revelation on the subject contains at least some of that rationale, so he did give us some of his reasoning. (Most Latter-day Saints know this as Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants.)
I don’t discount the significance of biblical precedent as a contributor to Joseph’s thought on the matter.
What he doesn’t articulate is the apparent connection between the size of one’s sealed earthly family and the extent of one’s eternal glory. But that nevertheless seems pretty clear to me why Joseph pursued plural marriages so assiduously.
Martyrdom, Legacy, and Reflections
If Joseph Smith hadn’t died in Carthage, what direction might he have taken next?
Historians tend to eschew counterfactuals, and I think there’s good reason to do so in this case. Would Joseph Smith have abandoned polygamy or expanded it? We don’t know.
In my biography, I argue that Joseph became increasingly reckless and desperate during the later Nauvoo years, a trend that I attribute at least in part to the intense trauma he and his people endured in Missouri.
Would that trend have continued? Again, we don’t know.
Had Joseph not been murdered, he probably would have led the Saints, or at least those who would follow him, to a new gathering place.
After other setbacks in his life, Joseph customarily displayed renewed vision and vigor, so I presume that would have been the case once again. He always had a new plan grander than the last plan.
I wish we knew about that plan. One of the realities of completing a biography is that as one works on drafts, one reprises the life of one’s subject repeatedly. In this case, the ending is so sad and tragic that I hated working my way through it so many times.
As a Presbyterian, what is your view of the third Article of Faith and Restoration soteriology?
I had to look it up!
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.
Articles of Faith 1:3
A Protestant Take on the Third Article of Faith
Your questions deserve long answers! I’ll have to back up and say there’s nothing specifically Presbyterian in my answer.
As your readers may or may not know, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a mainline, progressive denomination that is not closely connected to the Calvinist theology of earlier centuries. My own Christianity sort of straddles mainline and evangelical Protestantism.
I like Joseph’s rather optimistic view of human salvation.
Joseph Smith’s Optimistic Soteriology
So I’d simply say that humans find assurance of salvation through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that faith produces sanctification and obedience to the Gospel, often in fits and starts.
I’m not keen on making pronouncements on the salvation prospects of humans who, for whatever reason, do not come to faith in Jesus Christ. And I like the rather optimistic view of human salvation articulated by Joseph Smith and other Latter-day Saints.
I’m overall more appreciative than critical of Latter-day Saint theology. I love Grant Underwood’s recently published Latter-day Saint Theology Among Christian Theologies, which I recommend to all Christians interested in that subject.
I might take issue with what I see as a trend toward the end of his life.
But were I in a quibbling mood, I might take issue with what I see as a trend in Joseph Smith’s teaching toward the end of his life, that the extent of an individual’s eternal glory hinges on the extent of his obedience on earth.
Grace, Glory, and the Parable of the Vineyard
It makes me think of the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard, in which individuals get the same reward no matter how long they have worked. An equality of glory is an injustice from a certain human perspective, but I think that all of us who are saved by Christ’s atonement are going to get the same reward.
While I understand the usefulness of a spur toward greater obedience, I think one of the pearls of evangelical theology has been its insistence that one’s salvation hinges entirely on what Jesus Christ has done for us, not in any way on our own works. To quote a Baptist hymn, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’s blood and righteousness.”
As an aside, I love many Latter-day Saint hymns, including:
- “O My Father”
- “Adam-ondi-Ahman”
- “The Spirit of God Like a Fire Is Burning”
- “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?”
I even like “Praise to the Man!” And I love the fact that Latter-day Saints and other Christians share many hymns.
What did Joseph Smith most want people to understand about him?
He talks precisely about that at the end of the King Follett Discourse.
????But I want to take this final question in a different direction. What I see as one of the fundamental contradictions of Joseph Smith’s life is the tension between his vision of Zion—a people of one heart and mind—and the fact that his leadership both drew many people together but also sometimes tore them apart.
Polygamy is an example. Joseph pursued his vision of eternity in part by sundering or at least reordering existing bonds on earth. More broadly, though, he found it impossible to maintain his people’s unity in Kirtland, in Missouri, or Nauvoo.
Some of the challenges arose from Joseph’s own missteps, but other challenges emerged because there was no space for what Joseph Smith envisioned in the American republic.
Those hard realities, however, at least from my vantage point, don’t detract from the grandeur of Joseph’s vision.
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About the Scholar
John G. Turner is a Professor of Religious Studies and History at George Mason University. He wrote the first book-length biography of Joseph Smith utilizing the totality of the Joseph Smith Papers, The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet (Yale University Press, 2205). Turner holds a PhD in American History from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Divinity from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous related books and articles, including Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, The Mormon Jesus: A Biography, and They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty.
Further Reading
- Who Was the Early Mormon Jesus?
- When Did Joseph Smith Start Practicing Polygamy?
- How Did Freemasonry Influence Joseph Smith?
- What’s in John Turner’s Brigham Young Biography?
- Is This a Photo of Joseph Smith?
John Turner Joseph Smith Biography Resources
- Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet (Yale University Press)
- “Strange Things” and “Strong Meat”: John Turner’s Journey with Joseph Smith (From the Desk)
- Chronicling the Elusive Joseph Smith: A review of John G. Turner, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet (Yale University Press, 2025) (Patheos)
- Why This Non-Latter-day Saint Professor, Biographer Calls the Joseph Smith Papers a ‘Researcher’s Dream’ (Church News)
- Why Joseph Smith Matters (The Marginalia Review of Books)
Quotes From John Turner’s Joseph Smith Biography
????Read the book. For the rest of the story, get a copy of Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet by John G. Turner (Yale University Press, 2025).
Joseph as a Biography Subject
Joseph Smith is a white whale for a biographer, captivating but maddeningly elusive.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 1
John Turner’s Perspective
Smith remains an irresistable figure for many who encounter him, whether they see him as a prophet or a scoundrel—or a bit of both.
Put me in the last camp.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 1
First Vision
Whether or not heavenly beings appeared to Joseph is a mater of faith, not historical inquiry. . . . At the same time, regardless of its particular content or exact date, there seems little reason to doubt the story’s core: that a spiritually distraught young man sought, saw, and heard the Lord.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 22
Book of Mormon Witnesses
Many Americans claimed to have visions. Joseph Smith had the much rarer ability of enabling others to share those visions. In this case, moreover, he made a hidden object present for other people. The immaterial became real.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 60
Priesthood
Joseph had introduced and ordained men into the “high priesthood.” What was it? Priesthood for Joseph was not just about ecclesiastical office. It granted access to spiritual power and authority.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 100
Kirtland Safety Society
At the assembly, Joseph addressed the banking crisis. The debts of the church’s leaders caused embarrassment, he acknowledged. Yet he was unbowed. They had begun poor, were often afflicted, and nevertheless they had sacrificed to preach the gospel and “build a house for the Lord.” If the Saints brought their money to Kirtland, the church’s debts could be settled and the town would flourish.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 195
Polygamy
Baptism for the dead solved long-standing Christian anxieties. Another innovation, however, created a cascade of problems for the prophet. It was very “strong meat,” and Joseph shared it only with his most trustworthy friends.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 254
Emma Smith in Nauvoo
Now Joseph collided with someone more implacable than impatient creditors or Missouri politicians: Emma, who would neither back down nor abandon him.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 321
Martyrdom
Many of Joseph’s attackers were fellow Freemasons, but no one came to the prophet’s aid. Instead, members of the mob propped him up against a well and fired a few more balls into his chest. Joseph Smith was dead.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 370
Legacy
No church, archive, or book has been able to constrain Joseph Smith. Whether it was religion, marriage, or politics, he burst through the conventions of his time. Brigham Young once said that when he encountered Mormonism, he couldn’t let it go, in part because he couldn’t put it in a box, couldn’t fully figure it out. The same holds for Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet, p. 376
Book Blurbs: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet
Matthew Bowman (Claremont Graduate University)
This one is a ride. To the story of America’s most famous prophet John Turner brings a vigorous narrative style informed by the most recent scholarship. Even if you know Joseph Smith’s story well, this book is necessary reading.
Mark Oppenheimer (Editor of Arc: Religion, Politics, Et Cetera)
Unlike many who have written about Smith, Turner comes neither to praise Smith nor to bury him. To the contrary, he wants to bring him back to life, for our reading pleasure and for our scholarly enlightenment. He has written a classic – spritely, fun, and ultimately persuasive.
Benjamin E. Park (Author of American Zion: A New History of Mormonism)
John Turner has provided us a Joseph Smith for the current age. This biography successfully fleshes out the Mormon prophet’s life, mind, and environment, painting a picture that is both riveting and a reckoning.
Jana Riess (Author of The Next Mormons)
Not every reader trusts Joseph Smith, a complex character who has been scorned and idolized in equal measure. But every reader should trust historian John Turner to shed fresh light on Smith’s fascinating contradictions, and to teach us something new about the world of early Mormonism. This long-awaited, well-observed biography of the religion’s controversial founder balances careful research with lively prose. Highly recommended.
Patrick Q. Mason (Utah State University)
In this energetic new biography, Joseph Smith jumps off the pages as an audacious, visionary, and often reckless character. Turner has expertly portrayed Smith as an endlessly complex figure who can no more be tamed in death than he could in life.
