FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joseph Smith's family as trustworthy and hard-working
Questions
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Critics claim that there are "no contemporary pro-Mormon statements from reliable and informed sources who knew the Smith family and Joseph intimately."[1]
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]
==Detailed Analysis
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There are certainly no "contemporary" documents from the anti-Mormon side either. All the negativity comes after Joseph's announcement about his vision and the plates. Most of the negative reports (such as the Hurlbut-Howe affidavits came well after the Church's organization.
But, the critics' claim is false, as will be shown below.
Smiths as lazy
Many affidavits claim that the Smiths were lazy. Yet, contemporary documents and tax records (which are surely reliable, surely informed, and cannot be the victims of bias like neighbors' testimony can be) tell a very different story.
Reminiscence Concerning 1825
Josiah Stowell, Jr. (a non-Mormon): “I will give you a short history of what I know about Joseph Smith, Jr. I have been intimately acquainted with him about 2 years. He then was about 20 years old or thereabout. I also went to school with him one winter. He was a fine, likely young man....”[2]
1826
Despite charges brought against Joseph Smith for glasslooking, his employer (Josiah Stowell) testified that Joseph had not defrauded or deceived him.
1830
Two of Josiah Stowell's daughters (probably Miriam and Rhoda)[3] were called during a June 1830 court case against Joseph:
- the court was detained for a time, in order that two young women (daughters to Mr. Stoal) with whom I had at times kept company; might be sent for, in order, if possible to elicit something from them which might be made a pretext against me. The young ladies arrived and were severally examined, touching my character, and conduct in general but particularly as to my behavior towards them both in public and private, when they both bore such testimony in my favor, as left my enemies without a pretext on their account.[4]
Answer
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Notes
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- [note] Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults (Revised) (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1997), 190. ( Index of claims )
- [note] Letter, Josiah Stowell Jr. to John S. Fullmer, 17 February 1843.
- [note] Dean C. Jessee (editor), The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Vol. 1 of 2) (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1989), 254n252. ISBN 0875791999
- [note] Joseph Smith, "History of Joseph Smith Continued," Times and Seasons 4 no. 3 (28 October 1842), 41. off-site GospeLink See also History of the Church, 1:90. Volume 1 link