The text begins with the flight of two Israelite families from Jerusalem in about 600 BC and ends with the destruction of their civilization in about AD 421. The first hostile reports immediately called it the “Gold Bible,” partly because of the echoes of King James English in the prose. In its ambitious scope, the Book of Mormon most resembles the Bible. The Book of Mormon is an elaborate, thousand-year history of a civilization that flourished and then collapsed more than fourteen hundred years before Joseph Smith published the book. They are one reason for Yale literary critic Harold Bloom’s comment that Smith was “an authentic religious genius” who “surpassed all Americans, before or since, in the possession and expression of what could be called the religion-making imagination.” 8
However one accounts for these marvelous narratives, they exceed anything one would expect from a poorly educated rural visionary.
In the book of Abraham, the father of nations learns astronomy by consulting a Urim and Thummim. In the book of Moses, the reader learns of Enoch, who conversed with God and built a city that was taken into heaven. Readers are transported to remote times and places as they are when reading Beowulf or Thucydides-or the Bible. Matthews, eds., Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 75–152. Old Testament Revision 1 / “A Revelation Given to Joseph the Revelator June 1830,” 1830–1831. The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi. His followers complied with his often-demanding directions largely because they believed them to be from God. His major projects, plans, and doctrines originated in revelation. Hundreds of pages of revelations accumulated over his lifetime. Controversial as his claims were, the revelations were the source of his influence among the tens of thousands of people who joined the church while he was alive and the millions who accepted his teachings after his death. His rise as church leader, city builder, and theologian rested on what he believed was a gift of revelation, by which he meant direct communication from God in the form of visions into heaven, heavenly visitors, or more commonly the words of God coming through direct inspiration. Though he was intelligent and strong willed, no ordinary talent can account for his success. His rise from obscurity to prominence as the founder and first prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints did not follow a conventional path. In Joseph Smith, “Letter Book A,” 1832–1835, 1– (earliest numbering). “A History of the Life of Joseph Smith J r,” ca.
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