An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith (2nd ed)

Rating:
Summary: Record of a Man and a Religion
Review: In the 1842-43 journals, it's written "I wish you had my soul long enough to know how good it feels." I suppose that I came to this book trying, in a sense, to borrow a little bit of Joseph Smith's soul long enough to see how good it felt-- or at least trying to understand a little bit of the person behind the history.

It's more opaque than that. Although there are flashes of personal insight-- particularly religious insight-- these journals are more the record of Mormonism and the issues about it that concerned Smith as he moved across the country. From lists of payments and donations, to intra-faith quarrels, to visions of Nauvoo, to complaints about lawsuits, it gives a clear day-to-day picture of the man and his movement.

The diaries and journals were written by a mix of Joseph Smith and various secretaries acting in his name. In the introduction, the editor comments that he was trying for ease of reading rather than faithful photostatic reproduction-- and I have to say that I would have hated to see what happened if he'd tried for faithful, because the major problem I had with the book was that I found it very difficult to read-- all shorthand, omitted words, crossed out words, and misspellings were noted as they occurred in the text and while I'm sure that it's more valuable as a scholarly text because of the inclusion, it was very distracting. Also, some annotations about historical events wouldn't be amiss rather than the reader always being forced to refer to the (very sketchy) timeline at the beginning. I suppose that most people who will read this would be scholars of Mormon history rather than people with a more casual interest, but it would have illuminated parts of this book much more clearly for readers like myself.

Rating:
Summary: Valuable Source
Review: This is an excellent collection of the personal writings of the founder of the largest pseudo-Christian cult in America--the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (commonly known as the "Mormons"). It is a valuable resource for any cult apologist or theologian desiring to better understand the Mormon cult founder

Rating:
Summary: Read for yourself!
Review: This is one of several books that attempt to get at the root texts of Joseph Smith. We are in an unusual position with Joseph Smith: we have no autograph manuscripts of previous church leaders, such as Buddha, Moses, Mohamed, or Jesus Christ, but whit Joseph Smith, we have a tidal wave of primary documents that can be studied.

This book has the precious 1832 autograph history which has the second earliest version of the First Vision ever recorded, the earliest being D&C 20:5. It also has transcripts from his official journals. It is wonderful to have this book of the real words of Joseph Smith. The most surprising thing is to see that there was no monkey business going on with Joseph Smith's official history.

This edition is by Signature Books, which is a publishing house not friendly to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which makes this book even more interesting. The problem comes with the silent editing (p. xvii) that occurs with the book, especially with the disputed texts, such as the 27 July 1838 entry (see footnote p. 198), or the 26 September 1843 entry associated with the temple endowment, where the silent editing becomes rather loud.

The font is somewhat small, but it is quite readable, and this edition contains the manuscript strikeouts and misspellings, which impede reading a bit. This book has great biographies on people mentioned in the journals, and has a superb index, and a chronological overview of Smith's life. On the down side, there are no illustrations, except for the RLDS portrait of Joseph Smith.

This is a good one-volume alternative to the two-volume "Papers of Joseph Smith" published by Deseret Book, since it covers his entire life, stopping days before his assassination on 27 June 1844.