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Joseph Smith Jr. was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religious movement he founded is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Ch…
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politics · Founder of the Latter Day Saint movement (1805–1844) · prophet · politician · theologian · founder of religion · also Joseph Smith, President Joseph Smith Jr.12, Brother Joseph, President Joseph Smith, Smith
Born 23 December 1805 · Died 27 June 1844 · Q47102
68 published statements · 0 followers
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, and Smith might have kept it private because of how uncomfortable that first dismissal was. During the 1830s, Smith orally described the vision to some of his followers, though it was not widely published among Mormons until the 1840s. This vision later grew in importance to Smith
“, and Smith might have kept it private because of how uncomfortable that first dismissal was. During the 1830s, Smith orally described the vision to some of his followers, though it was not widely published among Mormons until the 1840s. This vision later grew in importance to Smith”
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“the most plain and precious parts of the gospel”
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Legacy obituary: Robert Joseph Smith Obituary (2026) - Bourne, MA - Cartmell-Davis Funeral & Cremation Service, Inc. - Main Office
Laker Country 104.9 WJRS: Summer Fun Continues at Joseph Smith Hayes Memorial Pool
Legacy obituary: Joseph David Smith Obituary (2026) - Butler, PA - Martin Funeral Home - Downtown
Mshale: Ten Changes Joseph Smith Made To The Bible Thailand (RAhw1LIvKh)
Legacy obituary: Joseph R. Smith Jr.
The Salt Lake Tribune: LDS Church founder Joseph Smith’s polygamy: The truth is out there — or is it?
Hoodline: Joseph Smith Wanted in Knoxville Felony Theft Case
insider.si.edu: Joseph Smith
Snopes rated the claim “Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was the first known U.S. presidential candidate to be assassinated.” Mixture.
Shown as reported and rated by a fact checker, not as an established fact.
The Digital Universe: Final volume of Joseph Smith Papers releases, scholars approve
The LDS church admitted Smith had had a marital relationship with Alger
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Egyptologists determined the Book of Abraham papyri were from the Egyptian Book of Breathing, with no connection to Abraham
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And reinterred them, along with Smith's wife, in Nauvoo at the Smith Family Cemetery
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Under the leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the RLDS Church (Community of Christ), which has about 250,000 members
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She withdrew from religion until 1860, when she affiliated with the RLDS Church headed by her son, Joseph III.
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Years after Smith's death, the Deseret News would publish an account of Smith and Cowdery having seen Jesus, Moses, Elias, and Elijah in April 1836
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Smith and the other prisoners were staying in the jailer's bedroom, which did not have bars on the windows
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Died 1844-06-27.
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Smith removed Law from the First Presidency
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On a platform which proposed gradually ending slavery, protecting the liberties of Latter Day Saints and other minorities, reducing the size of Congress, reestablishing a national bank, reforming prisons, and annexing Te
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Joseph Smith dictated a revelation about polygamy; Hyrum read the revelation to the High Council on August 12, dividing the hierarchy into polygamist and anti-polygamist factions
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Smith never clarified whether women could be ordained to priesthood offices
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The Nauvoo endowment included an elaborate ceremony containing elements similar to those of Freemasonry and the Jewish Kabbalah
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Marinda, age 26, became one of Smith's wives
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Don Carlos, who had been born a year earlier, died of malaria, and five months later, in 1842, Emma gave birth to a stillborn son
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To the church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (who were on a mission in the United Kingdom at the time), Smith refers to the passage in 1 Corinthians 15:29 (KJV):
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And in 1841 construction began on the Nauvoo Temple as a place for recovering lost ancient knowledge
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After a grand jury hearing in Daviess County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards
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Non-Mormons in Gallatin, Missouri, tried to prevent Mormons from voting, and a brawl ensued
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Smith's longtime partner Oliver Cowdrey was excommunicated after he criticized Joseph's relationship with Fanny Alger
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“put to right that which is not right, and to clense the Church of every great evil”
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Smith told followers that, as a teen, he had been visited by "two personages" that he identified as God and Jesus
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Smith narrated the encounter: "The messenger who visited us on this occasion and conferred this Priesthood upon us, said that his name was John, the same that is called John the Baptist in the New Testament, and that he
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There was a rift between Smith and Cowdery over the issue
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Oliver Cowdery, who was then assistant president of the church, accused Smith of engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage servant in his home, Fanny Alger
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A series of internal disputes led to the demise of the Kirtland community
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Smith introduced the practice of Washing and anointing
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Smith traveled to Salem, Massachusetts, to search for a trove of coins there
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Church apostle Orson Hyde was sent to the Ohio legislature to request a bank charter, while Oliver Cowdery went to Philadelphia and acquired plates to print notes for the proposed bank
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A "meeting was called for the camp of Zion to be assembled, to receive what was called a Zion's blessing"
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Smith and his followers published the Doctrine and Covenants featuring an updated version of an 1830 revelation
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Mentioned visits by Moroni, John the Baptist, patriarchs Joseph, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, and Michael or Adam, and the apostles Peter, James and John
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Smith encouraged some Latter Day Saints in Kirtland to purchase rolls of ancient Egyptian papyri from a traveling exhibitor
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“three times between 1834 and 1842 and commanded him to proceed with plural marriage.”
Identified the guardian as an old man named "Moroni"
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Smith edited and expanded many of the previous revelations, publishing them as the Book of Commandments, which later became part of the Doctrine and Covenants
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At a time of temperance agitation, Smith delivered a revelation called the "Word of Wisdom", which counseled a diet of wholesome herbs, fruits, grains and a sparing use of meat
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A mob dragged Smith and Rigdon from their beds, beat them badly, and then tarred and feathered them
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While working on translation of the Bible , Smith and Rigdon received what was known to early Latter Day Saints as "the Vision
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Career landmark: assault.
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Smith announced a revelation that the Zion of end times would be centered in Independence, Missouri
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Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communal Zion in the American heartland
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Smith introduced the High Priesthood and taught that its recipients would be "endowed with power from on high", fulfilling a desire for a greater holiness and an authority commensurate with the New Testament apostles
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In Kirtland, Ohio, Smith's revision of the Gospel of Matthew was published in an undated broadsheet as "Extract from the New Translation of the Bible"
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Smith began to privately teach the practice of polygamy, according to a variety of sources including apostles Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and Lyman E
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Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ, and small branches were established in Manchester, Fayette, and Colesville, New York
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Smith published the Book of Mormon, which he described as an English translation of those plates
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A local newspaper account claimed Smith "had been visited in a dream by the spirit of the Almighty" and was "thrice thus visited"
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Over the objections of her father Isaac Hale who regarded Smith as a charlatan
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About an attempt to recover the treasure years prior, where Joseph Jr
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Was arrested and charged with being a "disorderly person"
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Said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization
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When he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ)
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While he had been praying in a wooded area near his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ together appeared to him, told him his sins were forgiven, and said that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gosp
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In Vermont to Joseph Smith Sr
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Born 1805-12-23.
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