Why We Cannot Believe in Joseph Smith

WWCB series (Why We Cannot Believe)

by Joel B. Groat.
Copyright © 2010 Institute for Religious Research

We Cannot Believe Joseph Smith is a True Prophet of God because:

• Joseph’s personal life consisted of deception and immorality

• Joseph’s deception and immorality related to marriage and family
• Joseph’s self-serving changes to his own alleged revelations
• Joseph’s hypocrisy about the Word of Wisdom
• Joseph’s slander of his closest associates
• Joseph’s plagiarism of the LDS temple ceremony from Masonry
• Joseph’s false claim to supernatural ability to translate repeatedly exposed
  • Kinderhook plates forgery
  • Missing 116 pages of the Book of Mormon
  • The Book of Abraham

• Joseph meets the criteria given by God for identifying a false prophet

• Joseph meets the criteria given by Jesus and the apostles for false teachers and prophets

Joseph’s personal life consisted of deception and immorality

• Joseph secretly married over 30 women (In Sacred Loneliness, T Compton)

  • 7 of them were ages 14-17 years old (Joseph was 37-38 years old) ISL,  pp. 4-7

  • 10  were already married to other men (ISL,  pp. 4-7)

  • Chart of Joseph’s plural marriages as documented by Compton and others here.

  • Additional polygamy chart (less detailed printable PDF) here

  • Journal and diary accounts make it clear some were consummated sexually (ISL,  pp. 12-15)

  • He did this behind his wife’s back or hid the sexual aspect from her

Todd Compton’s book, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith, is a calmly crafted work designed to bring truth and understanding to this segment of Latter-day Saint history which too often has been characterized by either deliberate obfuscation or shameless sensationalism. Compton (Ph.D., classics, University of California, Los Angeles), himself a Latter-day Saint, has produced a thorough, well-documented work.  Read review here.

• Joseph lied publicly about his teaching and practice of polygamy while practicing it privately.

• Joseph used religious coercion and manipulation to get women to consent to plural marriage

• Joseph went back and revised or added information to revelations he claimed were from God to bolster his prophetic standing and abilities

  • Appearance of John the Baptist to give Aaronic priesthood

  • Appearance of Peter, James and John to give Melchizedek priesthood

  • He altered a revelation to allow him to produce additional revelations

• Joseph claimed the Word of Wisdom was a revelation from God then repeatedly violated it.

• Joseph slandered the character of his closest associates when they exposed his immoral behavior

• Joseph lied about the origins of the Mormon Temple ceremony.  He joined a Masonic order, learned their secret rituals and then incorporated these into a Mormon temple ceremony claiming his source was revelation from God.

• Joseph lied about his ability to translate ancient records, and was caught in the lie by people in a nearby community who created some fake etched metal plates, “discovered” them and took them to Joseph to translate, which he claimed to do.

 

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