December Ensign: Joseph Smith

I was dismayed to see the two pages about what he really looked like. Haven’t we see the same portraiture of him for a long time? I’m trying not to be sarcastic, but it is annoying that that would be seen as something intriguing. It struck me as a little “Primary” for the Ensign.

Of course it’s “Primary”. What else is there when many of the leaders continue to insist on “milk” before “meat”? I note with some degree of interest that this piece is in a ‘Department’ called ‘What We Believe”. Thus, it’s entire purpose is the indoctrination of the members. Preserving the hagiographic images of Joseph Smith, particularly the beatific one on the upper right of page 9 is meant to leave an emotional imprint of “Joseph Smith is a prophet of god”.

When you actually look at the early photos of Joseph Smith, as touched up as they are, they often aren’t nearly as impressive. Just like the life, when examined in detail.

I am not surprised the church continues this hagiography. They have said, so many times, that the truthfulness of the church depends entirely upon the story of Joseph Smith. Yes, he was a remarkable individual, but as well, he was plagued with human failings that, if these were discovered about one of the “brethren” today, would be cause for outright excommunication.

Well, let me be the devil’s (er… Joseph’s) advocate for a second… and I do so with full understanding of where you are coming from, as things like this have bugged me in the past, and I still find it frustrating that JS is always held up as the perfect example of uprightness.

While there is certainly an abundance of things to be cynical about, I guess I didn’t find the article in the Ensign to be quite as offensive.

For starters, JS is a principal figure in the church, and so, it’s pretty hard not to associate those major points of dogma with him. The article only says that he translated the BofM “by the power of God”, and doesn’t mention the seerstone, the urim and thummim, the dividing sheet or the the box. It does have an old painting which concisely conveys the idea that JS translated while a scribe wrote it, but the painting isn’t even accurate in the church’s own accepted history, because in the painting, JS and OC both sit at the table with the plates in full view and JS is simply looking at the plates and concentrating. But this is a little nit-picky, because the article, again, only says “by the power of God”… and that is the canonical LDS view. The article also mentions the first vision, which we all think of as dubious, but it is 100% in-line with the LDS church’s teaching; even to the point of being in their scriptures.

I agree that the vision of JS as the cover of GQ is over-the-top in the idyllic representation of the man… yet… we do know that he had sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, was exceptionally tall for the time, was stronger than his peers as a younger man, and was considered in that era to be very handsome. In addition, he was youthful. He was in his 20’s during the entire early period of the church. He produced the BofM at the age of 23. He was 24 when the church was organized. He was 25 when he established Mormon settlements in Kirtland, OH and Jackson County, MO. He led Zion’s Camp the age of 28. He was only 30 and a half, when the Kirtland Temple was dedicated. In all honesty, the “arian” portrait is probably fairly representative of reality. Now, in the last few years of his life, from his mid to late 30’s he had a receding hairline and became somewhat flabby… but that is an ailment of a lot of men.

I guess, all I’m saying, is that there is nothing in the article that says he was a perfect man, made only the best decisions, or was universally loved. It simply states that JS was the vehicle for the restoration of the church. I believe everything in there is accurate (with the exception of the BofM translation painting) to the church’s doctrine. I actually prefer this kind of representation of his role to many other articles I’ve seen that try to convince you want a wonderful, infallible man he was.

My biggest gripe about the article is that it refers to the gold plates as the “golden plates”. They were commonly called the “gold plates” by every member of the church until the primary song “The Golden Plates” came along, and had to use “golden” to fit the meter, as “The Go-old plates lay hi-id-den, deep in the mountain side” didn’t sound as good.

For completeness, the article can be found here: http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-december-2012/2012-12-04-the-gospel-of-jesus-christ-was-restored-through-the-prophet-joseph-smith-eng.pdf?download=true

On Own Now’s link is to the article I was talking about. It’s another photo spread further back in the issue. I don’t still have mine or I’d look it up. I just dislike that with all the members’ pent-up, unprocessed, unspeakable-in-church feelings about Joseph Smith, this is what we get.

I would have to say that there are images available that would do a world of good toward being honest about the way the BOM was “translated”. For instance

Can’t you just see this picture in an Ensign?

I understand that, Ann, and I don’t mean to diminish it in any way – but I still can’t criticize the choice of the personal picture that is in the magazine for the reasons I listed. Since that was a main focus of the post, that’s all I addressed in my comments.

Also, I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I think the reaction about the “portrait” picture is a reaction to the other issues – that you are making an issue out of that picture due to those other issues, not due to the picture itself. I don’t think that’s insignificant, since part of finding solutions often is being able to isolate the core issues and not let them “bleed over” into other things that don’t need to be issues.

Again, I don’t mean to dismiss or diminish those other issues, but I do mean to point out that the portrait picture really doesn’t have to be an issue – and losing even one potential issue is important in any attempt to work out a solution to other issues. Being hit by a snowball after it has accumulated rocks and twigs on its way down the hill is much worse than one that has rolled down a similar hill cleared of those things that need not be part of a snowball.

The church’s treatment of JS has been a 170 year long eulogy.

That is a profound insight, rebeccad – probably the best summary I’ve ever read.

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