![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | → | Archive 10 |
Anon contribution moved here for discussion:
They provided no sources -- anyone have any information on this twist? WBardwin 30 June 2005 06:38 (UTC)
One thought is to keep it simple; Joseph Smith was killed by being shot five times. It would be appropriate to cite where he was shot as noted above, but to attempt to state exaxtly when and in where he was positioned when shot seems like overkill. The point is Joseph Smith was killed by a mob. It is impossible to refute that statement.
I have a personal distate for historians who attempt to reconstruct history; finding conflicts where none exist. Quinn is particularly noteworthy in his vast reserach, but succeeds in nothing but muddying waters sufficiently enough to produce his own personal objectives. Is it noteworthy that Richard's recounting conflicts with others? How does Quinn know that Richard's was behind the door the entire time? When did Richard's state he did not know when Joseph was hit? How does one argue with the fact Joseph was hit in the back? Keeping it simple evades all the supposed conflicts. Storm Rider 19:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
You all know my feelings on Quinn. This article still overly relies on his research. Let's look at other sources, if we decide to get this granular. While I don't think quinn is making a doctrinal point, he does the same thing over and over and over again - 'we don't know how it happened, so this is how it could have.' For a professional historian whose income is in selling, the sensational makes money, not the safe and known facts - which are too dry to sell. New sources are needed. - Visorstuff 19:49, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Not to be cynical here, but is anyone seriously suggesting that we take a third-hand account written 53 years after the martyrdom over Willard Richards' own first-hand account written immediately afterward? And even if Richards was behind the door, the door is opposite the window, so he would have a clear view of Joseph Smith at windowsill. The mark of a good historian is the ability to fairly judge the value of various historical accounts; if Quinn is arguing that Barnes' letter casts serious doubt on Richards' testimony, then he is a poor historian indeed. -- MrWhipple 16:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
What are the imbedded, linked references 5 and 6 in the sectin "Smith's Death"? I am not sure a footnote is needed when a reader can go directly to the sources and read for themselves. Storm Rider 00:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I object; the proposed language does not improve the article or the information provided. Keep the article as is, which is what I stated above. Storm Rider 15:36, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I did a little research and turned up an additional eyewitness account to the martyrdom, written by William M. Daniels, who (at the time) was a non-Mormon and was with (but not in) the mob. The following comes from Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, pp. 87-90. Endnotes are included in small type inside {curly brackets}; material in [square brackets] is mine.
COMMENTS: This account brings to light some interesting points that should be included in the Wikipedia article on Smith. However, I think we need to treat Daniels' testimony with some suspicion. It would be impossible for him to have seen what happened in the jail bedroom, as his account is given from ground level; so we don't know if Joseph was shot in the room or not (as claimed by Taylor and Richards). The accusation of two fatalities from Joseph's gun is problematic, since three wounded men appeared for questioning at trial, and Joseph's gun fired three times (three barrels misfired). And the story of the light seems too much to be true.
SUGGESTIONS:
-- MrWhipple 06:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Also turned up John Taylor's eyewitness account (not D&C 135): LINK. Taylor admits he did not see Smith being shot or falling because he was under the bed; he relies on Richards for that information. So we're down to Richards vs. Daniels. -- MrWhipple 05:48, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree that "martyrdom" should not be in the title of the proposed article, although there should be some discussion within the article on how various groups see Smith's death (assassination, mob action, martyrdom, etc.). A longer article would also give room to discuss motivations (politics certainly did play a part in it). -- MrWhipple 20:45, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Wow, you folks have had a long, long discussion about this! It's a lot to read through. I haven't read the The Junius Conspiracy yet either. I'll admit that my first impression of the thesis (having not read it) is one of skepticism, but Jan Shipps told me the book was very thought-provoking and impressive (which doesn't necessarily mean she was convinced). Bob Wicks (one of the co-authors) will be presenting a paper on this thesis at JWHA this year (Sept. 30 in Springfield, Illinois) and I'll be attending. My two cents on a death of Joseph Smith article ----- I agree that far too much space in the main Joseph Smith article is devoted to the minutia of his death. There are so many things about Smith that are important; these seem to be given short shrift in a relative sense. So I would definitely vote to separate out the article, leaving a summary in the main article. Then you can bring up all of these issues that you've been discussing in the new article. -- John Hamer 16:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Proposed next steps:
Does this meet with everyone's approval? Does anyone have suggestions for the main article summary? -- MrWhipple 17:34, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
DONE. Please see the new article: Death of Joseph Smith, Jr. -- MrWhipple 22:19, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Anon Contribution moved here for discussion. I believe this is addressed in the "death" article. WBardwin 20:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
As this year is the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birth, I think this would be a fine time to consider getting this article up to speed and then submitting it as a Featured Article Candidate. Anyone else agree? Rmisiak 18:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Hey do you guys think this is ready for feature nomination? I think most of the peer review problems have been worked out. Cookiecaper 21:49, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
K I think it's good for another review. Most of that stuff is taken care of and a lot of work has been done on Early Life (Thanks COGDEN!). ^_^ Cookiecaper 19:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
A new editor has made a number of changes, relatively minor, to the article. I replaced the one dealing with polgyny/polygamy/plural marriage. Here is a subsequent comment moved from the article for discussion. WBardwin 02:51, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
The anon did have a minor point, which I took. I often do rewrites in small increments. I was going to add information back, but then I saw your message. Since the introduction is now a matter of discussion, I reverted my (initial) change and put my proposed rewrite for the first two paragraphs (w/o links) below:
I think it reads better. Val42 03:24, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think my last edit is clearer. The phrase "This movement is most widely known because of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" is grammatical, but odd-sounding. -- MrWhipple 06:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
That is interesting, I thought the reknown of the LDS chruch was the result of its world reknowned welfare syetem that has been studied by every president since Eisenhower and the numerous foreign governments that have visited SLC to attempt to udnerstand how and why it works so effectively. Then again, there is the Word of Wisdom; ask anyone in the world about a Mormon and the first thing you will hear is, "Oh, you the ones to don't smoke or drink alcohol". Or, as you state, one of the world's largest, if not the largest, missionary forces with a world-wide approach. Then, there is the fact that the early members were so thoroughly persecuted by the Christian groups of Missiouri and Illinois that they were forced to trek to a forsaken part of the country and successfully turned it into a productive desert. Yup, I would say that the reknown of the LDS church is far beyond the role polygamy played during the early days of the chruch.
The intent of the change is to underline why 95% of the followers belong to the LDS church and not to overweight the impact of the small, and some, insignificant groups that have broken off from the chruch during its history. Storm Rider 00:05, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I really disagree with mentioning a specific Mormon denomination in the introduction, and especially to implying that Smith's importance is due to any particular organization. It just isn't necessary, and has nothing to do with his life, which is what the article is about. As this is a biography, the scope of the article ought to end at Smith's death. COGDEN 04:00, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
I am moving an anon.'s contribution/revision of this section here for review... Please see the archived discussion on this topic. I believe we should make a prompt decision on this breaking story and reflect it in the article. WBardwin 21:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I have a question: While the Y-Chromosome research of Joseph Smith Jr establishes that one person claiming to be their descendent via Fanny Alger was not Joseph Smith Jr's descendent, the website The Wives of Joseph Smith Jr that is cited in the previous post quotes some relation recalling that at least Emma thought that Fanny's pregnancy was due to Joseph's involvement with her.
Chauncey Webb recounts Emma’s later discovery of the relationship: “Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house”. [2]
Given this belief on Emma's part, are you sure that mere genetic testing of people claiming to be his descendents is sufficient to establish that there were no sexual unions?
-- Rck 22:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Anon contribution by 70.34.44.249 moved from article for discussion. The anon asserts: However, none of the eight children widely mentioned by historians as Smith's polygamous children have yet to be tested. No source was offered. This was one of several edits dealing with plural marriage, twice reverted. After I moved his assertion, he deleted existing material on the DNA question -- please review and restore if appropriate. WBardwin 06:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
- Researchers have tentatively identified eight children that Joseph Smith may have had by his plural wives. Besides Josephine Fisher (b. Feb. 8, 1844) and Oliver Buell, named as possible children of Joseph Smith by his plural wives are John R. Hancock (b. Apr. 19, 1841), George A. Lightner (b. Mar. 12, 1842), Orson W. Hyde (b. Nov. 9, 1843), Frank H. Hyde (b. Jan 23, 1845), Moroni Pratt (b. Dec. 7, 1844), and Zebulon Jacobs (b. Jan 2, 1842). ("Mormon Polygamy: A History" by LDS Historian Richard S. Van Wagoner, pages 44, 48- 49n3.) The DNA testing is attempting to examine at least one of the eight. From Anon.
Hello everyone. First I need to point out that I'm new to Wikipedia and am not yet fully familiar with the editing practices and policies.
Friday evening I was browsing Wikipedia for the first time, read the article on Joseph Smith, and added a note about the origins of the Brigham Young transfiguration legend based on what I've read from Richard S. Van Wagoner. Within a half hour my edit was overwritten. So I thought I would try the discussion page to see if I could get the edit to stay in the article. Again, I'm not sure about the procedures here so accept my apologies if I'm doing this in the wrong place or manner.
The issue is this: Richard S. Van Wagoner shows in his article "The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young" (from Dialogue Vol 28, No. 4, reprinted in Vol 34, No. 1) that the Brigham Young transfiguration legend has its origins in Utah in the late 1850's with the first report of such an incident appearing around 1857. He surveys the contemporary reports and finds no mention of such a miraculous occurence. He presents a theory of "contagion theory or scenario fulfillment" to explain how this legend began and spread and why so many people reported decades later to have seen the transfiguration, some of whom were not even present at the 1844 conference.
My edit was this: After the lines "An 8 August 1844 conference which established Young's leadership is the source of an oft-repeated legend. Multiple journal and eyewitness accounts from those who followed Young state that when Young spoke regarding the claims of succession by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he appeared to look or sound like the late Smith." I added this: "(These accounts, however, were written many years after the event. Accounts from immediately after the event, even by the same authors, contain no such reports.)"
A half hour later MrWhipple had edited again to make it:
"An 8 August 1844 conference which established Young's leadership is the source of an oft-repeated legend. Multiple journal and eyewitness accounts from those who followed Young state that when Young spoke regarding the claims of succession by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he appeared to look or sound like the late Smith. Although many of these accounts were written years after the event, there were contemporary records. D. Michael Quinn wrote:
"There were contemporary references to Young's "transfiguration." The Times and Seasons reported that just before the sustaining vote at the afternoon session of the August meeting, "every Saint could see that Elijah's mantle had truly falled upon the 'Twelve.'" Although the church newspaper did not refer to Young specifically for the "mantle" experience, on 15 November 1844 Henry and Catharine Brooke wrote from Nauvoo that Young "favours Br Joseph, both in person, manner of speaking more than any person ever you saw, looks like another." Five days later Arza Hinckley referred to "Brigham Young on [w]hom the mantle of the prophet Joseph has fallen."[6]
I don't think Quinn's quotes have any relevance to the matter. Saying that someone's "mantle has fallen on" someone else is a figurative expression to mean that their authority or mission has been transferred to another. Saying that "Elijah's authority is now with the quorum of the twelve" is obviously in no way the same as saying that "Brigham Young looked and sounded exactly like Joseph Smith." The last two quotes, the third one again being figurative, do not even refer to the conference and Quinn gives us no reason to think that they do. None of these three quotes bears any resemblance to the miraculous reports of the incident written decades later. If the writers had meant that Young looked and sounded just like Smith in a miraculous transfiguration at the conference, they probably would have just said so.
I also notice on the discussion page that the contributors wish to reduce the number of references to Quinn's work. I submit this one should be the first to go.
I'd like to change my edit to read "(These accounts, however, were written many years after the event, some by people who did not even attend the conference. Accounts from immediately after the event, even by some of the same authors, contain no such reports.)" I should probably also add a reference to Van Wagoner's article.
Any advice on the next step?
The article states the following: That Joseph "described his vision as an appearance of Jesus and God the Father sometime during the spring of 1820, when he was fourteen years old."
Joseph never says it was God and Jesus in the official account. Rather he alludes to it. Other versions include Jesus and being present, don't they? Am curious if anyone can cite where Smith says God and Jesus appeared to him at the first vision? The 1832 account says he saw "the Lord." [3] Should we change to reflect this? Just an interesting question I came across this weekend.... - Visorstuff 15:05, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I think there is sufficient evidence from the links already provided that one of the personages was Jesus. - Visorstuff 17:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
The first few paragraphs of this article seem to have a biased tone; particularly the "controversial figure" remarks. It is true that Joseph Smith was controversial, and I don't disagree that this should be included in the article - however, the early paragraphs of the article seem to highlight this controversy, while taking away from the fact that he is highly-regarded by millions Latter-days Saints. These biased paragraphs set a negative tone for the entire article.
Additionally, the first few paragraphs contain much information that should be spoken of later in the article. For example, the fact that he was a presidential candidate. It was an important part of his history, but not one of the major accomplishments of his life, nor what he is widely remembered for today. Most of the people who read this article aren't reading it because he was once a presidential candiate, or because he founded a once-prosperous city - most are reading the article because Joseph Smith is belived by many to be a prophet, and because of his role in the Latter-day Saint Movement. I think that the introduction should be limited to these and more basic facts about him; the rest of the information would be better if it were presented later on in the article.
Rmisiak 06:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I somewhat disagree with his presidential bid being unimportant. He died as a presidential candidate. It is not un-thinkable that he could have become president at the time. Most of the presidents of the timeperiod were little-known individuals. Even those who had prominence seemed to have a bit of a problem getting elected (stephen douglas for example) Van Buren, and others were little known. It wasn't until Grant that the presidential figure had national promience again prior to being elected. If you study Smith from a secular point of view, which many do, his presidential bid was the capstone of his life, in the same way that LDS think his temple revelatory and rolling the keys to the twelve was the capstone of his religious career. His design of the grid system for towns is used in nearly every western city past the mississippi, he was a pioneer in swamp-draining techniques that were later used throughout the south, his anti-slave views were revolutionary, his ability to create cities and architecht buildings on the frontier - not of log, but of stone, his strong belief in the constitution as an inspired document, his numerous petitions to congress, his ability to set up a city-state within a state (Nauvoo) was amazing during a time when state rights was chief among political thought. His presidential bid was the capstone of many of these thoughts and I believe much more important than many think. THey look at him as a Mormon prophet, not at his civic and other legacies that changed the american landscape. His presidential bid is as important as Ben Franklin's ambassadorship to France, in my opinion. It was a crowning point of his life - a summation of his life's experience and capable leadership. As he died in the campaign trail, it should play a prominent role in the introductory paragraphs. - Visorstuff 05:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I have rewritten some of the references using Book reference and associated templates from Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles. Does this look reasonable?
We also need to choose a format for footnotes. Wikipedia:Peer review/Joseph Smith, Jr./archive1 suggests Wikipedia:Footnote3. See Johann Sebastian Bach for another style of footnote. Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check discusses the issue of footnotes and references. I don't have a suggestion yet. I'm not used to writing footnotes for wikipedia, and don't have a preferred style. Nereocystis 06:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I used footnote3 to add a footnote giving references about Smith's death. This is a very primitive note. Nereocystis 15:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I converted internal references to external links to footnotes. Please look at the article, and comment. The last few footnotes do not have a description, or formal link. This should be added. I prefer to add these items to references as well, when I have time. Nereocystis 20:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Consistency is important. I like endnotes because they easily indicate where the references are. They also allow additional notes without cluttering the main text. It is more difficult to find all inline notes. If there is an inline template, this issue would be easier. On the other hand, if you are reading the article, it is easier to read the inline references. Adding footnotes is problematic, and may lead to errors, confusing references. Though I somewhat prefer the endnotes, I'm not completely sold on the endnotes, though I started it here, partly because of a suggestion by a reviewer. Nereocystis 14:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Sure. That sounds fine. Though I wish that there were some way of easily searching for the Harvard style references. Perhaps a template for Harvard style references, though it wouldn't really do anything except make the references easy to find. Nereocystis 14:31, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Instead of shuffling Joseph's marriage to Emma from topic to topic in the larger section, how about a distinct unit on Joseph's family? I think this is a sadly neglected point of the article. Could include:
The larger chunk, in the existing section, about his religious/spiritual development as a young man could stand alone and remain largely chronological.
I'm willing to help, but will be particularly busy in the next six-weeks or so. Comments welcome. WBardwin 06:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it appropriate to pick and choose which theories are provided as long as they come from reputable sources and not simply anti-Mormon drivel from people who have no scholarly basis and just an axe to grind against Mormonism. If there is legitimate controversy, all sides should be given ample room. You were the one who offered the context of "Lots of families were kicked out of Norwich in those days, probably due in part to the massive crop failures". Also, I don't quantify either story (Joseph and leg surgery and Joseph and his family being warned out of town) as being integral parts of Joseph Smith's history. For in-depth study it will be read, but it is not important. Without providing full treatment, err on the side of not alluding to an irreputable people. Context matters and is important. I guess it depends on your objectives, COgden. Are you trying to explain Joseph Smith to those who do not know his history or are you trying to cast dispersions? Tidbits of information without context will do the later. Storm Rider 01:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Created stubs on Julia Murdock Smith and David Hyrum Smith and found a external site with photographs and som family and Julia's history. I think we should expand articles on each of the surviving children -- and summarize their early childhoods (at least) in this article. Will try to work out some time to help on this section. WBardwin 08:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
One big misunderstanding concerning the visions his father seposadly had(Acording to this article). All LDS members and many Historians Have stated that the visions cam from Joseph Smith Sen. Father before Joseph Smith jr. was ever born. Joseph Smith Seniors Father never new Joseph Smith jr. he had died before he was born. User:198.110.32.98
Sorry about the misconception of him still not being alive, but still proves my point that it wasn't Joseph smith sen it was his father who had the vesion. (unsigned by anon editor)
Joseph Smith, Jr.#King Follett Discourse says that the King Follett is one of Smith's most famous speeches, but this article and King Follett Discourse give no details on the speech. A one or two sentence summary needs to be added. God and exaltation are not quite enough enough of a description.
If there isn't a description, perhaps the section should be deleted. Nereocystis 20:47, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
The description is a good beginning, but it should probably mention something about the plurality of gods of which Smith spoke, as well as god once being man. Perhaps it should mention something about Hinckley's public statements on the issue, which sound like a non-denial denial. King Follet is probably too important to delete. Nereocystis 08:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I have a problem with the Infobox. Infoboxes are good for things like political presidents, or kings, or prime ministers, where there is a well-defined office and a well-defined successor. However, here, there is not. Moreover, the Infobox refers to Smith as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is only true from one POV. If we listed every position or role he held (such as prophet, apostle, elder, president, high priest, president of the first presidency, trustee of the Church, etc.), and the date he first came to that position or role, it would be a rather large box. I'm proposing a change, reflected in my last edit. Comments? COGDEN 18:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The Church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is NOT a UTAH church. It is a world wide church. I live in Michigan as a member of that church. I have been To idaho, IL, Ohio, New York, Canada, and every were i have gone there are members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I would have to agree with User:COGDEN who said "If we listed every position or role he held (such as prophet, apostle, elder, president, high priest, president of the first presidency, trustee of the Church, etc.), and the date he first came to that position or role, it would be a rather large box." (unsigned by anon)
In academic circles, the LDS Church is called the "Utah Church" as compared to the "Missouri Church" (RLDS, now Community of Christ) and the "Wisconsin" Church (The Strangites). Sometimes the latter are called the "plains churces" as many of the sects that didn't follow Young stayed in the mid-west. So to say the "Utah" church is not to say it is a church in utah, but to distinguish it from other sects in the (unhyphenated) Latter Day Saint movement (there are literally hundreds of churches who claim that Smith was a prophet, and geographic designation is one nomenclature to distinguish). That said, it is the Utah church of the Latter Day Saint movement. Most of the editors on this page are LDS by religion or Mormon culturally, or part of the Latter Day Saint Movement, so we know the worldwide nature of the LDS Church, but we also use academic norms in writing, and this is one academic standard that we will keep for the time being. - Visorstuff 17:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the basic point that COGDEN raises: the info box wasn't quite neutral, as the link to the LDS Church rather affirms the POV that it is the "true successor", which isn't what it's trying to say, otherwise. (Cookiecaper, you may believe that this really is the case, but that's not the only POV on the matter, and it can't be represented as fact unqualifiedly.) However, no-one sounds very happy about the 'look' of the new bio-box, and it does lose useful information.
I'd like to suggest the following: the old infobox be moved into the template namespace (currently it's a titled as a "sub-article", except that sub-pages are no longer supported by the software in that namespace); that the LDS Church link be replaced by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or some other link that makes clearer that he was the president of a historical, pre-division church, not unambiguously any modern denomination. Are there any other issues to be addressed? Alai 15:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I made some change to the Infobox to avoid this issue altogether by refering to him as President of the Church of Christ - that article sufficiently explains the nuances. Although subpages are discouraged in the main space, I recommend that the Joseph Smith Infobox NOT be moved to the template namespace since templates that are only used on one page are routinely deleated and the alternative to having it as a subpage of this page is to have a lot of ugly formatting at the top that will confuse new users and be a target for vandalism. Trödel| talk 20:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we have a resolution, then? About the "subpage alternative": trouble is, Jim, it isn't a subpage, it's a top level (i.e., only level) page in the main article space, with a "/" in it. But since it's not being used anyway, perhaps we should list it for deletion anyway...? Alai 00:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Has anybody got their hands on a copy of Richard L. Bushman's new biography on Joseph Smith ( ISBN 1400042704)? I haven't seen it yet, but from reviews I've read, people are saying it's Smith's best biography thus far, at least from a faithful Mormon scholar, and I'm wondering if it might be a good reference for this article on matters for which the primary source documents aren't readily available, and on apologetic interpretations of Smith's history. COGDEN 17:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I just replaced a painting of Moroni and Joseph with an engraving from 1893. I think it's a better, clearer illustration, and it has no copyright issues. I'm not sure when the previous one was painted. Cookiecaper, do you know?
Anyway, does everyone agree the new one is better? COGDEN 01:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Regarding another image I'd like to add if possible, does anybody know when the stained-glass window shown on the last cover of Newsweek was made? I have a high-quality scanned image of it (shown here), but I can't find out when it was made, and where it came from, in order to assess its copyright status. It still might be sufficiently "transformative" to be fair use, but it would be great if it were public domain. I've heard, second-hand, that the window was completed in 1913. Can anyone verify? COGDEN 20:55, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:56:24 -0600 From: Jeff Cook <cookiecaper@gmail.com> To: Andrea.Faville@newsweek.com Subject: "Making of the Mormons" Newsweek cover art Hello, I found your email listed as a press contact regarding the cover story of Newsweek's October 17, 2005 issue. I'm an editor at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org) and there has been a recent inquiry among editors of the Joseph Smith article concerning the stained-glass window representing the First Vision as seen on the October 17, 2005 edition's cover art (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Joseph_Smith%2C_Jr.). Wikipedia is very careful about copyrights and all content we use must be used under an acceptable license (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights). I was wondering if you had the copyright information for this artwork (date completed, ownership, etc.). Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Jeff Cook
A section like this was recently added. I don't believe that it requires it's own section. There is maybe somewhere it belongs, but a passing mention in this article ought to suffice if it must be mentioned at all. This is not the first cover story about Joseph Smith and/or the Mormons and I doubt very deeply it will be the last. Is there a page like Mormons in the Media or something? This belongs in a place like that. Good job to the writer though, I like the piece, it just doesn't belong here. Cookiecaper 23:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I beleave that the Artcal is the best reflection on the church and mostly on Joseph Smith. (unsigned by anon)
Some background on the various reasons for the jailing, the visit by the governor, and perhaps the motivation of the mob would be nice. I would like to write an article on Levi Williams, as I have much geneological information on him, and it would be fitting to link him to the Joseph Smith page.
I have issues with this statement. The quote is perhaps correct but is written as if to support the previous claim.
In his book, Under the Banner of Heaven, author Jon Krakauer links this particular episode to a sexual liaison Smith purportedly had with Benjamin Johnson's 15-year-old daughter, Miranda Nancy Johnson. Krakauer quotes Miranda's older brother Luke Johnson as saying that the mob "had Dr. Dennison there to perform the operation [of castration]; but when he saw the Prophet stripped and stretched on the plank, his heart failed him and he refused to operate."
Consider this from Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001):
The motivation for this mobbing has been debated. Clark Braden, a late, antagonistic, secondhand witness, alleged in a polemic public debate that Marinda's brother Eli led a mob against Smith because the prophet had been too intimate with Marinda. This tradition suggests that Smith may have married Marinda at this early time, and some circumstantial factors support such a possibility. The castration attempt might be taken as evidence that the mob felt that Joseph had committed a sexual impropriety; since the attempt is reported by Luke Johnson, there is no good reason to doubt it. Also, they had planned the operation in advance, as they brought along a doctor to perform it. The first revelations on polygamy had been received in 1831, by historian Danel Bachman's dating. Also, Joseph Smith did tend to marry women who had stayed at his house or in whose house he had stayed.
Many other factors, however, argue against this theory. First, Marinda had no brother named Eli, which suggests that Braden's accusation, late as it is, is garbled and unreliable. In addition, two antagonistic accounts by Hayden and S. F. Whitney give an entirely different reason for the mobbing, with an entirely different leader, Simonds Ryder, an ex-Mormon, though the Johnson brothers are still participants. In these accounts the reason for the violence is economic: the Johnson boys were in the mob because of "the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith." The castration, in this scenario, may have only been a threat, meant to intimidate Smith and cause him to leave Hiram [where the Johnsons lived]
After describing the event, Marinda wrote only, "Here I feel like bearing my testimony that during the whole year that Joseph was an inmate of my father's house I never saw aught in his daily life or conversation to make me doubt his divine mission." While it is not impossible that Marinda became Smith's first plural wife in 1831, the evidence for such a marriage, resting chiefly on the late, unreliable Braden, is not compelling. Unless more credible evidence is found, it is best to proceed under the assumption that Joseph and Marinda did not marry or have a relationship in 1831. (231-32)01:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC) Dradamh 01:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We need to get the ball rolling on getting this featured if we want to have it on Dec 5. Apparently, User:Raul654 is the featured article boss and no article has been chosen for 12/5, so we have a good chance if we get it moving. I'll go through it and change what I think needs to be changed; everyone else should do the same. Do we really need to bother with a second peer review or can we go straight for the nomination? What is the copyright status of the Joseph Smith portrait? Someone does not agree that it is public domain. That must be sorted out before nomination. Cookiecaper 21:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Current "already chosen buffer" lead time seems to be about a week or so, though I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there's pile-on of "seasonal-themed" articles as Christmas closes in... One or two dates after that window have also been filled in already. Also bear in mind there's a two-step process here: first it has to get featured status, and then it has to be nominated to the main page.
As time is short, then... Two very quick observations. The article is very long. It's close to thrice recommended length. I think serious consideration should be given the the tenets of Wikipedia:Summary style, and in particular to the possibility of factoring out to subsidiary articles. Secondly, the lead section is far from "tight". It's four paragraphs, and the use of bullet-points doesn't seem ideal. I'd condense, trim, and move into the body of the article (... notwithstanding point #1...) to get it down to three, if at all possible. Alai 02:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but you're not going for the main page of Brittanica... I don't think the problem here is too many POVs, it's simply too much detail. And naturally I'm not suggesting any of said detail be lost, just factored out into sub-articles. But I'll grant you that's a lot of work to do, in what's effectively a month or so.
Somewhat relatedly, the major section that's already been factored out ("Death of...") strikes me as having much too short a summary in this article, and even moreso in its own lead section. Alai 15:58, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Here's a possibility: We could farm out most of the history into one or more subarticles such as History of Joseph Smith, Jr., or History of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805 to 1827), and then this article would contain only the briefest summaries of Smith's life (which probably can be done neutrally if we don't get into too much detail and describe all the major perspectives, although it will take some thrashing-out and several rounds of voting). But in contrast to what we have now, the article could also include non-contemporary information about how people have reacted to his life, and what his life means (ala the Gautama Buddha article), such as:
However, this would mean a lot more work for this article, and I don't see it being completed quick enough to be included as a feature article. If we don't think this can be done in time, we could also submit one of the separated-out historical articles for featured status. This we could do pretty quickly, especially if we carved-out an article ranging from his birth in 1805 to just before he recovered the plates in 1827, which seems to be a good dividing line. This would be something like History of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805 to 1827). Since the material for this time frame is essentially in place, though in need of a good work-over by several people of different perspectives, we could get it into featured-article quality relatively quickly. Then, we could continue to develop all the other articles, including this one, at a more measured pace. COGDEN 21:49, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Nobody seems to oppose splitting off a new purely-historical article about Joseph Smith, so I did it, naming it Life of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805 to 1827). That article, I think, as it now stands, is closer to being in shape for featured status than is the present. It's also about 43 kilobytes long, which is a size nobody can really complain about. So, what's the next step? Should we nominate and peer-review that article, or should we continue planning to nominate the present one? COGDEN 00:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd imagine it'd suffice to give the dates, but in a manner not suggestive of births and deaths. Say, Life of of Joseph Smith, Jr., from 1827 to 1831. In the first instance, "Early life..." is good, though. Alai 04:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I deleted the following clause:
It is an interesting statement, but needs to be further developed for it to enhance the article, otherwise it seems to only provide a negative distraction. What share did they think was theirs? Who were they? Did they proceed legally against Smith? Did they threaten him? How did Joseph respond to them? What was the outcome? I know I am a broken record, but this is the type of historical "tidbit" that has no place in the article unless it is fleshed out and explained. Storm Rider 00:38, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Storm Rider, the bare statement is more fully addressed in Bushman's biography: basically it is believed that Joseph had an agreement with those whom he had been reluctantly treasure digging to share what had been found. Years later when Joseph obtains the GOLD plates, former treasure digging associates felt they had a right to a share of the treasure...meaning, the plates. The fuller background explains much including the vigilant hiding of the plates, etc. Naturally, Joseph would be embarrased about having associated with treasure-diggers in the past just to susist. The reason why some people were "continually after the plates" is understood a little better now. B| Talk 03:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm nominating Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. for peer review, with an eye toward getting featured status as soon as possible. Could everyone please take a look and try and get the article ready for possible featured status on Dec. 23? ''COGDEN'' 08:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
The peer review page is here: Wikipedia:Peer review/Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr./archive1 COGDEN 08:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I've nominated the article Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. as a featured article candidate. If you think the article should be featured, please express your vote here. COGDEN 05:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
The article is a poor candidate. It is too much information on too arcane a subject. Some other historic figures have articles on just one part of their lives, but not many...and with good reason. Some things are better relegated to books than encyclopedia articles. Just because something is scholarly, well-written, and well-researched doesn't automatically make it good encyclopedia material. Joseph Smith Jr. could be a feature article, but Early Life doesn't have the right stuff. Dr U 06:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree, the split article "looks well". However, perhaps there'd be no harm in nominating this, the parent article, too, as a FA, now that the summarisation is well in hand, if people feel it's ready otherwise. Spoil Raul for choice, come selection day? Alai 05:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
If someone does go ahead and nominate it, then firstly, best of luck; and also, I'd suggest, as before, that the summary at this page of the main "Death of..." article is still rather too short. Alai 01:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've grafted in content from the death article to the death summary, removed the portrait of Joseph Smith that some CofC dude put watermarks on, added in a little thing that says things at the header, and nominated this for consideration as a featured article. :) Cookiecaper 01:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | ← | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | → | Archive 10 |
Anon contribution moved here for discussion:
They provided no sources -- anyone have any information on this twist? WBardwin 30 June 2005 06:38 (UTC)
One thought is to keep it simple; Joseph Smith was killed by being shot five times. It would be appropriate to cite where he was shot as noted above, but to attempt to state exaxtly when and in where he was positioned when shot seems like overkill. The point is Joseph Smith was killed by a mob. It is impossible to refute that statement.
I have a personal distate for historians who attempt to reconstruct history; finding conflicts where none exist. Quinn is particularly noteworthy in his vast reserach, but succeeds in nothing but muddying waters sufficiently enough to produce his own personal objectives. Is it noteworthy that Richard's recounting conflicts with others? How does Quinn know that Richard's was behind the door the entire time? When did Richard's state he did not know when Joseph was hit? How does one argue with the fact Joseph was hit in the back? Keeping it simple evades all the supposed conflicts. Storm Rider 19:36, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
You all know my feelings on Quinn. This article still overly relies on his research. Let's look at other sources, if we decide to get this granular. While I don't think quinn is making a doctrinal point, he does the same thing over and over and over again - 'we don't know how it happened, so this is how it could have.' For a professional historian whose income is in selling, the sensational makes money, not the safe and known facts - which are too dry to sell. New sources are needed. - Visorstuff 19:49, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
Not to be cynical here, but is anyone seriously suggesting that we take a third-hand account written 53 years after the martyrdom over Willard Richards' own first-hand account written immediately afterward? And even if Richards was behind the door, the door is opposite the window, so he would have a clear view of Joseph Smith at windowsill. The mark of a good historian is the ability to fairly judge the value of various historical accounts; if Quinn is arguing that Barnes' letter casts serious doubt on Richards' testimony, then he is a poor historian indeed. -- MrWhipple 16:40, 19 August 2005 (UTC)
What are the imbedded, linked references 5 and 6 in the sectin "Smith's Death"? I am not sure a footnote is needed when a reader can go directly to the sources and read for themselves. Storm Rider 00:23, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I object; the proposed language does not improve the article or the information provided. Keep the article as is, which is what I stated above. Storm Rider 15:36, 20 August 2005 (UTC)
I did a little research and turned up an additional eyewitness account to the martyrdom, written by William M. Daniels, who (at the time) was a non-Mormon and was with (but not in) the mob. The following comes from Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, pp. 87-90. Endnotes are included in small type inside {curly brackets}; material in [square brackets] is mine.
COMMENTS: This account brings to light some interesting points that should be included in the Wikipedia article on Smith. However, I think we need to treat Daniels' testimony with some suspicion. It would be impossible for him to have seen what happened in the jail bedroom, as his account is given from ground level; so we don't know if Joseph was shot in the room or not (as claimed by Taylor and Richards). The accusation of two fatalities from Joseph's gun is problematic, since three wounded men appeared for questioning at trial, and Joseph's gun fired three times (three barrels misfired). And the story of the light seems too much to be true.
SUGGESTIONS:
-- MrWhipple 06:26, 27 August 2005 (UTC)
Also turned up John Taylor's eyewitness account (not D&C 135): LINK. Taylor admits he did not see Smith being shot or falling because he was under the bed; he relies on Richards for that information. So we're down to Richards vs. Daniels. -- MrWhipple 05:48, 28 August 2005 (UTC)
I agree that "martyrdom" should not be in the title of the proposed article, although there should be some discussion within the article on how various groups see Smith's death (assassination, mob action, martyrdom, etc.). A longer article would also give room to discuss motivations (politics certainly did play a part in it). -- MrWhipple 20:45, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Wow, you folks have had a long, long discussion about this! It's a lot to read through. I haven't read the The Junius Conspiracy yet either. I'll admit that my first impression of the thesis (having not read it) is one of skepticism, but Jan Shipps told me the book was very thought-provoking and impressive (which doesn't necessarily mean she was convinced). Bob Wicks (one of the co-authors) will be presenting a paper on this thesis at JWHA this year (Sept. 30 in Springfield, Illinois) and I'll be attending. My two cents on a death of Joseph Smith article ----- I agree that far too much space in the main Joseph Smith article is devoted to the minutia of his death. There are so many things about Smith that are important; these seem to be given short shrift in a relative sense. So I would definitely vote to separate out the article, leaving a summary in the main article. Then you can bring up all of these issues that you've been discussing in the new article. -- John Hamer 16:22, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Proposed next steps:
Does this meet with everyone's approval? Does anyone have suggestions for the main article summary? -- MrWhipple 17:34, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
DONE. Please see the new article: Death of Joseph Smith, Jr. -- MrWhipple 22:19, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
Anon Contribution moved here for discussion. I believe this is addressed in the "death" article. WBardwin 20:07, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
As this year is the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith's birth, I think this would be a fine time to consider getting this article up to speed and then submitting it as a Featured Article Candidate. Anyone else agree? Rmisiak 18:27, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
Hey do you guys think this is ready for feature nomination? I think most of the peer review problems have been worked out. Cookiecaper 21:49, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
K I think it's good for another review. Most of that stuff is taken care of and a lot of work has been done on Early Life (Thanks COGDEN!). ^_^ Cookiecaper 19:06, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
A new editor has made a number of changes, relatively minor, to the article. I replaced the one dealing with polgyny/polygamy/plural marriage. Here is a subsequent comment moved from the article for discussion. WBardwin 02:51, 1 September 2005 (UTC)
The anon did have a minor point, which I took. I often do rewrites in small increments. I was going to add information back, but then I saw your message. Since the introduction is now a matter of discussion, I reverted my (initial) change and put my proposed rewrite for the first two paragraphs (w/o links) below:
I think it reads better. Val42 03:24, September 1, 2005 (UTC)
Personally, I think my last edit is clearer. The phrase "This movement is most widely known because of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" is grammatical, but odd-sounding. -- MrWhipple 06:45, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
That is interesting, I thought the reknown of the LDS chruch was the result of its world reknowned welfare syetem that has been studied by every president since Eisenhower and the numerous foreign governments that have visited SLC to attempt to udnerstand how and why it works so effectively. Then again, there is the Word of Wisdom; ask anyone in the world about a Mormon and the first thing you will hear is, "Oh, you the ones to don't smoke or drink alcohol". Or, as you state, one of the world's largest, if not the largest, missionary forces with a world-wide approach. Then, there is the fact that the early members were so thoroughly persecuted by the Christian groups of Missiouri and Illinois that they were forced to trek to a forsaken part of the country and successfully turned it into a productive desert. Yup, I would say that the reknown of the LDS church is far beyond the role polygamy played during the early days of the chruch.
The intent of the change is to underline why 95% of the followers belong to the LDS church and not to overweight the impact of the small, and some, insignificant groups that have broken off from the chruch during its history. Storm Rider 00:05, 3 September 2005 (UTC)
I really disagree with mentioning a specific Mormon denomination in the introduction, and especially to implying that Smith's importance is due to any particular organization. It just isn't necessary, and has nothing to do with his life, which is what the article is about. As this is a biography, the scope of the article ought to end at Smith's death. COGDEN 04:00, September 12, 2005 (UTC)
I am moving an anon.'s contribution/revision of this section here for review... Please see the archived discussion on this topic. I believe we should make a prompt decision on this breaking story and reflect it in the article. WBardwin 21:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)
I have a question: While the Y-Chromosome research of Joseph Smith Jr establishes that one person claiming to be their descendent via Fanny Alger was not Joseph Smith Jr's descendent, the website The Wives of Joseph Smith Jr that is cited in the previous post quotes some relation recalling that at least Emma thought that Fanny's pregnancy was due to Joseph's involvement with her.
Chauncey Webb recounts Emma’s later discovery of the relationship: “Emma was furious, and drove the girl, who was unable to conceal the consequences of her celestial relation with the prophet, out of her house”. [2]
Given this belief on Emma's part, are you sure that mere genetic testing of people claiming to be his descendents is sufficient to establish that there were no sexual unions?
-- Rck 22:08, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
Anon contribution by 70.34.44.249 moved from article for discussion. The anon asserts: However, none of the eight children widely mentioned by historians as Smith's polygamous children have yet to be tested. No source was offered. This was one of several edits dealing with plural marriage, twice reverted. After I moved his assertion, he deleted existing material on the DNA question -- please review and restore if appropriate. WBardwin 06:30, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
- Researchers have tentatively identified eight children that Joseph Smith may have had by his plural wives. Besides Josephine Fisher (b. Feb. 8, 1844) and Oliver Buell, named as possible children of Joseph Smith by his plural wives are John R. Hancock (b. Apr. 19, 1841), George A. Lightner (b. Mar. 12, 1842), Orson W. Hyde (b. Nov. 9, 1843), Frank H. Hyde (b. Jan 23, 1845), Moroni Pratt (b. Dec. 7, 1844), and Zebulon Jacobs (b. Jan 2, 1842). ("Mormon Polygamy: A History" by LDS Historian Richard S. Van Wagoner, pages 44, 48- 49n3.) The DNA testing is attempting to examine at least one of the eight. From Anon.
Hello everyone. First I need to point out that I'm new to Wikipedia and am not yet fully familiar with the editing practices and policies.
Friday evening I was browsing Wikipedia for the first time, read the article on Joseph Smith, and added a note about the origins of the Brigham Young transfiguration legend based on what I've read from Richard S. Van Wagoner. Within a half hour my edit was overwritten. So I thought I would try the discussion page to see if I could get the edit to stay in the article. Again, I'm not sure about the procedures here so accept my apologies if I'm doing this in the wrong place or manner.
The issue is this: Richard S. Van Wagoner shows in his article "The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young" (from Dialogue Vol 28, No. 4, reprinted in Vol 34, No. 1) that the Brigham Young transfiguration legend has its origins in Utah in the late 1850's with the first report of such an incident appearing around 1857. He surveys the contemporary reports and finds no mention of such a miraculous occurence. He presents a theory of "contagion theory or scenario fulfillment" to explain how this legend began and spread and why so many people reported decades later to have seen the transfiguration, some of whom were not even present at the 1844 conference.
My edit was this: After the lines "An 8 August 1844 conference which established Young's leadership is the source of an oft-repeated legend. Multiple journal and eyewitness accounts from those who followed Young state that when Young spoke regarding the claims of succession by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he appeared to look or sound like the late Smith." I added this: "(These accounts, however, were written many years after the event. Accounts from immediately after the event, even by the same authors, contain no such reports.)"
A half hour later MrWhipple had edited again to make it:
"An 8 August 1844 conference which established Young's leadership is the source of an oft-repeated legend. Multiple journal and eyewitness accounts from those who followed Young state that when Young spoke regarding the claims of succession by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he appeared to look or sound like the late Smith. Although many of these accounts were written years after the event, there were contemporary records. D. Michael Quinn wrote:
"There were contemporary references to Young's "transfiguration." The Times and Seasons reported that just before the sustaining vote at the afternoon session of the August meeting, "every Saint could see that Elijah's mantle had truly falled upon the 'Twelve.'" Although the church newspaper did not refer to Young specifically for the "mantle" experience, on 15 November 1844 Henry and Catharine Brooke wrote from Nauvoo that Young "favours Br Joseph, both in person, manner of speaking more than any person ever you saw, looks like another." Five days later Arza Hinckley referred to "Brigham Young on [w]hom the mantle of the prophet Joseph has fallen."[6]
I don't think Quinn's quotes have any relevance to the matter. Saying that someone's "mantle has fallen on" someone else is a figurative expression to mean that their authority or mission has been transferred to another. Saying that "Elijah's authority is now with the quorum of the twelve" is obviously in no way the same as saying that "Brigham Young looked and sounded exactly like Joseph Smith." The last two quotes, the third one again being figurative, do not even refer to the conference and Quinn gives us no reason to think that they do. None of these three quotes bears any resemblance to the miraculous reports of the incident written decades later. If the writers had meant that Young looked and sounded just like Smith in a miraculous transfiguration at the conference, they probably would have just said so.
I also notice on the discussion page that the contributors wish to reduce the number of references to Quinn's work. I submit this one should be the first to go.
I'd like to change my edit to read "(These accounts, however, were written many years after the event, some by people who did not even attend the conference. Accounts from immediately after the event, even by some of the same authors, contain no such reports.)" I should probably also add a reference to Van Wagoner's article.
Any advice on the next step?
The article states the following: That Joseph "described his vision as an appearance of Jesus and God the Father sometime during the spring of 1820, when he was fourteen years old."
Joseph never says it was God and Jesus in the official account. Rather he alludes to it. Other versions include Jesus and being present, don't they? Am curious if anyone can cite where Smith says God and Jesus appeared to him at the first vision? The 1832 account says he saw "the Lord." [3] Should we change to reflect this? Just an interesting question I came across this weekend.... - Visorstuff 15:05, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I think there is sufficient evidence from the links already provided that one of the personages was Jesus. - Visorstuff 17:14, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
The first few paragraphs of this article seem to have a biased tone; particularly the "controversial figure" remarks. It is true that Joseph Smith was controversial, and I don't disagree that this should be included in the article - however, the early paragraphs of the article seem to highlight this controversy, while taking away from the fact that he is highly-regarded by millions Latter-days Saints. These biased paragraphs set a negative tone for the entire article.
Additionally, the first few paragraphs contain much information that should be spoken of later in the article. For example, the fact that he was a presidential candidate. It was an important part of his history, but not one of the major accomplishments of his life, nor what he is widely remembered for today. Most of the people who read this article aren't reading it because he was once a presidential candiate, or because he founded a once-prosperous city - most are reading the article because Joseph Smith is belived by many to be a prophet, and because of his role in the Latter-day Saint Movement. I think that the introduction should be limited to these and more basic facts about him; the rest of the information would be better if it were presented later on in the article.
Rmisiak 06:11, 26 September 2005 (UTC)
I somewhat disagree with his presidential bid being unimportant. He died as a presidential candidate. It is not un-thinkable that he could have become president at the time. Most of the presidents of the timeperiod were little-known individuals. Even those who had prominence seemed to have a bit of a problem getting elected (stephen douglas for example) Van Buren, and others were little known. It wasn't until Grant that the presidential figure had national promience again prior to being elected. If you study Smith from a secular point of view, which many do, his presidential bid was the capstone of his life, in the same way that LDS think his temple revelatory and rolling the keys to the twelve was the capstone of his religious career. His design of the grid system for towns is used in nearly every western city past the mississippi, he was a pioneer in swamp-draining techniques that were later used throughout the south, his anti-slave views were revolutionary, his ability to create cities and architecht buildings on the frontier - not of log, but of stone, his strong belief in the constitution as an inspired document, his numerous petitions to congress, his ability to set up a city-state within a state (Nauvoo) was amazing during a time when state rights was chief among political thought. His presidential bid was the capstone of many of these thoughts and I believe much more important than many think. THey look at him as a Mormon prophet, not at his civic and other legacies that changed the american landscape. His presidential bid is as important as Ben Franklin's ambassadorship to France, in my opinion. It was a crowning point of his life - a summation of his life's experience and capable leadership. As he died in the campaign trail, it should play a prominent role in the introductory paragraphs. - Visorstuff 05:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
I have rewritten some of the references using Book reference and associated templates from Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles. Does this look reasonable?
We also need to choose a format for footnotes. Wikipedia:Peer review/Joseph Smith, Jr./archive1 suggests Wikipedia:Footnote3. See Johann Sebastian Bach for another style of footnote. Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check discusses the issue of footnotes and references. I don't have a suggestion yet. I'm not used to writing footnotes for wikipedia, and don't have a preferred style. Nereocystis 06:31, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I used footnote3 to add a footnote giving references about Smith's death. This is a very primitive note. Nereocystis 15:03, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I converted internal references to external links to footnotes. Please look at the article, and comment. The last few footnotes do not have a description, or formal link. This should be added. I prefer to add these items to references as well, when I have time. Nereocystis 20:53, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
Consistency is important. I like endnotes because they easily indicate where the references are. They also allow additional notes without cluttering the main text. It is more difficult to find all inline notes. If there is an inline template, this issue would be easier. On the other hand, if you are reading the article, it is easier to read the inline references. Adding footnotes is problematic, and may lead to errors, confusing references. Though I somewhat prefer the endnotes, I'm not completely sold on the endnotes, though I started it here, partly because of a suggestion by a reviewer. Nereocystis 14:09, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Sure. That sounds fine. Though I wish that there were some way of easily searching for the Harvard style references. Perhaps a template for Harvard style references, though it wouldn't really do anything except make the references easy to find. Nereocystis 14:31, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
Instead of shuffling Joseph's marriage to Emma from topic to topic in the larger section, how about a distinct unit on Joseph's family? I think this is a sadly neglected point of the article. Could include:
The larger chunk, in the existing section, about his religious/spiritual development as a young man could stand alone and remain largely chronological.
I'm willing to help, but will be particularly busy in the next six-weeks or so. Comments welcome. WBardwin 06:22, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it appropriate to pick and choose which theories are provided as long as they come from reputable sources and not simply anti-Mormon drivel from people who have no scholarly basis and just an axe to grind against Mormonism. If there is legitimate controversy, all sides should be given ample room. You were the one who offered the context of "Lots of families were kicked out of Norwich in those days, probably due in part to the massive crop failures". Also, I don't quantify either story (Joseph and leg surgery and Joseph and his family being warned out of town) as being integral parts of Joseph Smith's history. For in-depth study it will be read, but it is not important. Without providing full treatment, err on the side of not alluding to an irreputable people. Context matters and is important. I guess it depends on your objectives, COgden. Are you trying to explain Joseph Smith to those who do not know his history or are you trying to cast dispersions? Tidbits of information without context will do the later. Storm Rider 01:36, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Created stubs on Julia Murdock Smith and David Hyrum Smith and found a external site with photographs and som family and Julia's history. I think we should expand articles on each of the surviving children -- and summarize their early childhoods (at least) in this article. Will try to work out some time to help on this section. WBardwin 08:42, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
One big misunderstanding concerning the visions his father seposadly had(Acording to this article). All LDS members and many Historians Have stated that the visions cam from Joseph Smith Sen. Father before Joseph Smith jr. was ever born. Joseph Smith Seniors Father never new Joseph Smith jr. he had died before he was born. User:198.110.32.98
Sorry about the misconception of him still not being alive, but still proves my point that it wasn't Joseph smith sen it was his father who had the vesion. (unsigned by anon editor)
Joseph Smith, Jr.#King Follett Discourse says that the King Follett is one of Smith's most famous speeches, but this article and King Follett Discourse give no details on the speech. A one or two sentence summary needs to be added. God and exaltation are not quite enough enough of a description.
If there isn't a description, perhaps the section should be deleted. Nereocystis 20:47, 6 October 2005 (UTC)
The description is a good beginning, but it should probably mention something about the plurality of gods of which Smith spoke, as well as god once being man. Perhaps it should mention something about Hinckley's public statements on the issue, which sound like a non-denial denial. King Follet is probably too important to delete. Nereocystis 08:29, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I have a problem with the Infobox. Infoboxes are good for things like political presidents, or kings, or prime ministers, where there is a well-defined office and a well-defined successor. However, here, there is not. Moreover, the Infobox refers to Smith as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is only true from one POV. If we listed every position or role he held (such as prophet, apostle, elder, president, high priest, president of the first presidency, trustee of the Church, etc.), and the date he first came to that position or role, it would be a rather large box. I'm proposing a change, reflected in my last edit. Comments? COGDEN 18:51, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The Church The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is NOT a UTAH church. It is a world wide church. I live in Michigan as a member of that church. I have been To idaho, IL, Ohio, New York, Canada, and every were i have gone there are members of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I would have to agree with User:COGDEN who said "If we listed every position or role he held (such as prophet, apostle, elder, president, high priest, president of the first presidency, trustee of the Church, etc.), and the date he first came to that position or role, it would be a rather large box." (unsigned by anon)
In academic circles, the LDS Church is called the "Utah Church" as compared to the "Missouri Church" (RLDS, now Community of Christ) and the "Wisconsin" Church (The Strangites). Sometimes the latter are called the "plains churces" as many of the sects that didn't follow Young stayed in the mid-west. So to say the "Utah" church is not to say it is a church in utah, but to distinguish it from other sects in the (unhyphenated) Latter Day Saint movement (there are literally hundreds of churches who claim that Smith was a prophet, and geographic designation is one nomenclature to distinguish). That said, it is the Utah church of the Latter Day Saint movement. Most of the editors on this page are LDS by religion or Mormon culturally, or part of the Latter Day Saint Movement, so we know the worldwide nature of the LDS Church, but we also use academic norms in writing, and this is one academic standard that we will keep for the time being. - Visorstuff 17:04, 25 October 2005 (UTC)
I agree with the basic point that COGDEN raises: the info box wasn't quite neutral, as the link to the LDS Church rather affirms the POV that it is the "true successor", which isn't what it's trying to say, otherwise. (Cookiecaper, you may believe that this really is the case, but that's not the only POV on the matter, and it can't be represented as fact unqualifiedly.) However, no-one sounds very happy about the 'look' of the new bio-box, and it does lose useful information.
I'd like to suggest the following: the old infobox be moved into the template namespace (currently it's a titled as a "sub-article", except that sub-pages are no longer supported by the software in that namespace); that the LDS Church link be replaced by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or some other link that makes clearer that he was the president of a historical, pre-division church, not unambiguously any modern denomination. Are there any other issues to be addressed? Alai 15:00, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I made some change to the Infobox to avoid this issue altogether by refering to him as President of the Church of Christ - that article sufficiently explains the nuances. Although subpages are discouraged in the main space, I recommend that the Joseph Smith Infobox NOT be moved to the template namespace since templates that are only used on one page are routinely deleated and the alternative to having it as a subpage of this page is to have a lot of ugly formatting at the top that will confuse new users and be a target for vandalism. Trödel| talk 20:49, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
I think we have a resolution, then? About the "subpage alternative": trouble is, Jim, it isn't a subpage, it's a top level (i.e., only level) page in the main article space, with a "/" in it. But since it's not being used anyway, perhaps we should list it for deletion anyway...? Alai 00:38, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
Has anybody got their hands on a copy of Richard L. Bushman's new biography on Joseph Smith ( ISBN 1400042704)? I haven't seen it yet, but from reviews I've read, people are saying it's Smith's best biography thus far, at least from a faithful Mormon scholar, and I'm wondering if it might be a good reference for this article on matters for which the primary source documents aren't readily available, and on apologetic interpretations of Smith's history. COGDEN 17:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
I just replaced a painting of Moroni and Joseph with an engraving from 1893. I think it's a better, clearer illustration, and it has no copyright issues. I'm not sure when the previous one was painted. Cookiecaper, do you know?
Anyway, does everyone agree the new one is better? COGDEN 01:11, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Regarding another image I'd like to add if possible, does anybody know when the stained-glass window shown on the last cover of Newsweek was made? I have a high-quality scanned image of it (shown here), but I can't find out when it was made, and where it came from, in order to assess its copyright status. It still might be sufficiently "transformative" to be fair use, but it would be great if it were public domain. I've heard, second-hand, that the window was completed in 1913. Can anyone verify? COGDEN 20:55, 13 October 2005 (UTC)
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 20:56:24 -0600 From: Jeff Cook <cookiecaper@gmail.com> To: Andrea.Faville@newsweek.com Subject: "Making of the Mormons" Newsweek cover art Hello, I found your email listed as a press contact regarding the cover story of Newsweek's October 17, 2005 issue. I'm an editor at Wikipedia ( http://en.wikipedia.org) and there has been a recent inquiry among editors of the Joseph Smith article concerning the stained-glass window representing the First Vision as seen on the October 17, 2005 edition's cover art (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Joseph_Smith%2C_Jr.). Wikipedia is very careful about copyrights and all content we use must be used under an acceptable license (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Copyrights). I was wondering if you had the copyright information for this artwork (date completed, ownership, etc.). Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you, Jeff Cook
A section like this was recently added. I don't believe that it requires it's own section. There is maybe somewhere it belongs, but a passing mention in this article ought to suffice if it must be mentioned at all. This is not the first cover story about Joseph Smith and/or the Mormons and I doubt very deeply it will be the last. Is there a page like Mormons in the Media or something? This belongs in a place like that. Good job to the writer though, I like the piece, it just doesn't belong here. Cookiecaper 23:07, 15 October 2005 (UTC)
I beleave that the Artcal is the best reflection on the church and mostly on Joseph Smith. (unsigned by anon)
Some background on the various reasons for the jailing, the visit by the governor, and perhaps the motivation of the mob would be nice. I would like to write an article on Levi Williams, as I have much geneological information on him, and it would be fitting to link him to the Joseph Smith page.
I have issues with this statement. The quote is perhaps correct but is written as if to support the previous claim.
In his book, Under the Banner of Heaven, author Jon Krakauer links this particular episode to a sexual liaison Smith purportedly had with Benjamin Johnson's 15-year-old daughter, Miranda Nancy Johnson. Krakauer quotes Miranda's older brother Luke Johnson as saying that the mob "had Dr. Dennison there to perform the operation [of castration]; but when he saw the Prophet stripped and stretched on the plank, his heart failed him and he refused to operate."
Consider this from Todd Compton, In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001):
The motivation for this mobbing has been debated. Clark Braden, a late, antagonistic, secondhand witness, alleged in a polemic public debate that Marinda's brother Eli led a mob against Smith because the prophet had been too intimate with Marinda. This tradition suggests that Smith may have married Marinda at this early time, and some circumstantial factors support such a possibility. The castration attempt might be taken as evidence that the mob felt that Joseph had committed a sexual impropriety; since the attempt is reported by Luke Johnson, there is no good reason to doubt it. Also, they had planned the operation in advance, as they brought along a doctor to perform it. The first revelations on polygamy had been received in 1831, by historian Danel Bachman's dating. Also, Joseph Smith did tend to marry women who had stayed at his house or in whose house he had stayed.
Many other factors, however, argue against this theory. First, Marinda had no brother named Eli, which suggests that Braden's accusation, late as it is, is garbled and unreliable. In addition, two antagonistic accounts by Hayden and S. F. Whitney give an entirely different reason for the mobbing, with an entirely different leader, Simonds Ryder, an ex-Mormon, though the Johnson brothers are still participants. In these accounts the reason for the violence is economic: the Johnson boys were in the mob because of "the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Smith." The castration, in this scenario, may have only been a threat, meant to intimidate Smith and cause him to leave Hiram [where the Johnsons lived]
After describing the event, Marinda wrote only, "Here I feel like bearing my testimony that during the whole year that Joseph was an inmate of my father's house I never saw aught in his daily life or conversation to make me doubt his divine mission." While it is not impossible that Marinda became Smith's first plural wife in 1831, the evidence for such a marriage, resting chiefly on the late, unreliable Braden, is not compelling. Unless more credible evidence is found, it is best to proceed under the assumption that Joseph and Marinda did not marry or have a relationship in 1831. (231-32)01:42, 6 December 2005 (UTC) Dradamh 01:45, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We need to get the ball rolling on getting this featured if we want to have it on Dec 5. Apparently, User:Raul654 is the featured article boss and no article has been chosen for 12/5, so we have a good chance if we get it moving. I'll go through it and change what I think needs to be changed; everyone else should do the same. Do we really need to bother with a second peer review or can we go straight for the nomination? What is the copyright status of the Joseph Smith portrait? Someone does not agree that it is public domain. That must be sorted out before nomination. Cookiecaper 21:31, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
Current "already chosen buffer" lead time seems to be about a week or so, though I wouldn't be entirely surprised if there's pile-on of "seasonal-themed" articles as Christmas closes in... One or two dates after that window have also been filled in already. Also bear in mind there's a two-step process here: first it has to get featured status, and then it has to be nominated to the main page.
As time is short, then... Two very quick observations. The article is very long. It's close to thrice recommended length. I think serious consideration should be given the the tenets of Wikipedia:Summary style, and in particular to the possibility of factoring out to subsidiary articles. Secondly, the lead section is far from "tight". It's four paragraphs, and the use of bullet-points doesn't seem ideal. I'd condense, trim, and move into the body of the article (... notwithstanding point #1...) to get it down to three, if at all possible. Alai 02:12, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, but you're not going for the main page of Brittanica... I don't think the problem here is too many POVs, it's simply too much detail. And naturally I'm not suggesting any of said detail be lost, just factored out into sub-articles. But I'll grant you that's a lot of work to do, in what's effectively a month or so.
Somewhat relatedly, the major section that's already been factored out ("Death of...") strikes me as having much too short a summary in this article, and even moreso in its own lead section. Alai 15:58, 1 November 2005 (UTC)
Here's a possibility: We could farm out most of the history into one or more subarticles such as History of Joseph Smith, Jr., or History of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805 to 1827), and then this article would contain only the briefest summaries of Smith's life (which probably can be done neutrally if we don't get into too much detail and describe all the major perspectives, although it will take some thrashing-out and several rounds of voting). But in contrast to what we have now, the article could also include non-contemporary information about how people have reacted to his life, and what his life means (ala the Gautama Buddha article), such as:
However, this would mean a lot more work for this article, and I don't see it being completed quick enough to be included as a feature article. If we don't think this can be done in time, we could also submit one of the separated-out historical articles for featured status. This we could do pretty quickly, especially if we carved-out an article ranging from his birth in 1805 to just before he recovered the plates in 1827, which seems to be a good dividing line. This would be something like History of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805 to 1827). Since the material for this time frame is essentially in place, though in need of a good work-over by several people of different perspectives, we could get it into featured-article quality relatively quickly. Then, we could continue to develop all the other articles, including this one, at a more measured pace. COGDEN 21:49, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Nobody seems to oppose splitting off a new purely-historical article about Joseph Smith, so I did it, naming it Life of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805 to 1827). That article, I think, as it now stands, is closer to being in shape for featured status than is the present. It's also about 43 kilobytes long, which is a size nobody can really complain about. So, what's the next step? Should we nominate and peer-review that article, or should we continue planning to nominate the present one? COGDEN 00:44, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
I'd imagine it'd suffice to give the dates, but in a manner not suggestive of births and deaths. Say, Life of of Joseph Smith, Jr., from 1827 to 1831. In the first instance, "Early life..." is good, though. Alai 04:49, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
I deleted the following clause:
It is an interesting statement, but needs to be further developed for it to enhance the article, otherwise it seems to only provide a negative distraction. What share did they think was theirs? Who were they? Did they proceed legally against Smith? Did they threaten him? How did Joseph respond to them? What was the outcome? I know I am a broken record, but this is the type of historical "tidbit" that has no place in the article unless it is fleshed out and explained. Storm Rider 00:38, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
Storm Rider, the bare statement is more fully addressed in Bushman's biography: basically it is believed that Joseph had an agreement with those whom he had been reluctantly treasure digging to share what had been found. Years later when Joseph obtains the GOLD plates, former treasure digging associates felt they had a right to a share of the treasure...meaning, the plates. The fuller background explains much including the vigilant hiding of the plates, etc. Naturally, Joseph would be embarrased about having associated with treasure-diggers in the past just to susist. The reason why some people were "continually after the plates" is understood a little better now. B| Talk 03:42, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm nominating Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. for peer review, with an eye toward getting featured status as soon as possible. Could everyone please take a look and try and get the article ready for possible featured status on Dec. 23? ''COGDEN'' 08:41, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
The peer review page is here: Wikipedia:Peer review/Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr./archive1 COGDEN 08:59, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
I've nominated the article Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. as a featured article candidate. If you think the article should be featured, please express your vote here. COGDEN 05:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
The article is a poor candidate. It is too much information on too arcane a subject. Some other historic figures have articles on just one part of their lives, but not many...and with good reason. Some things are better relegated to books than encyclopedia articles. Just because something is scholarly, well-written, and well-researched doesn't automatically make it good encyclopedia material. Joseph Smith Jr. could be a feature article, but Early Life doesn't have the right stuff. Dr U 06:25, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
I agree, the split article "looks well". However, perhaps there'd be no harm in nominating this, the parent article, too, as a FA, now that the summarisation is well in hand, if people feel it's ready otherwise. Spoil Raul for choice, come selection day? Alai 05:28, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
If someone does go ahead and nominate it, then firstly, best of luck; and also, I'd suggest, as before, that the summary at this page of the main "Death of..." article is still rather too short. Alai 01:09, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Okay, I've grafted in content from the death article to the death summary, removed the portrait of Joseph Smith that some CofC dude put watermarks on, added in a little thing that says things at the header, and nominated this for consideration as a featured article. :) Cookiecaper 01:00, 4 December 2005 (UTC)