Joseph Smith Biography

(Grace) #1

Without Disclosing My True Identity


organization that is unparalleled in its meteoric expansion, evolution, current prestige, and
growing power in the areas of world politics, science, and the international business
community. There is no way a reasonable argument can be made that a farm boy in the
early 1800’s was sufficiently educated enough to construct such a masterpiece that would
deceive some of the world’s brightest, wealthiest, and most educated people.


The Schooling of an Uneducated Farm Boy


Since the spring of 1820, Joseph had used the Bible as his primary source of reading
material. As mentioned, he wanted to know everything about the Bible and the character of
“Moses” that Christ said he would one day emulate. Joseph read from the Bible every
chance that he could. These chances, however, were limited by the Smith family’s struggle
to make the payments on their land and permanently establish themselves in the state of
New York in the United States. Most of Joseph’s waking hours were spent laboring with his
father and brothers.
Although one might be an excellent or insatiable reader, that propensity does not
necessarily translate into the development of effective writing skills and composition. If
Joseph had been given reading proficiency tests at the time he turned eighteen years of age,
he would have scored in reading comprehension at a modern-day third or fourth grade
level, UNLESS, the test was given in biblical prose, in which case he would have scored
much higher. However, even with his higher reading proficiency because of the Bible, the
young Joseph could barely form the letters necessary to write his name. And though one
may draw together the ability to scratch out a few letters, the understanding and knowledge
required to compose one’s thoughts into the written word at the Book of Mormon’s particular
writing level would have been an overpowering task to this eighteen year old. When it came
to writing proficiency, Joseph would have scored at near a first grade level before the
commencement of his next four years of “advanced schooling” under the careful tutelage of
the smartest, most experienced men on earth—the Brothers.


Instruction and Intelligence are Given


Joseph began his nineteenth year, turning 18 on December 23, 1823—three months
from the day that he received his second visitation from an advanced human being. On
September 23, 1823, Joseph had entered an educational system that no other mortal before
him had ever encountered. The curriculum that he was provided within his schooling was
something that no other fully mortal human upon the earth even knew existed. It included,
but was not limited to, “the great and marvelous things which [had] been hid up from the
foundation of the world.”^2
Along with the curriculum, Joseph was taught by four of the most intelligent and
experienced instructors that have ever lived upon the earth. Joseph received most of his
education from the Three Nephites and John the Beloved. Individually, the learning of each
of these four men eclipses that of any other man on earth. Collectively, what they know is
staggering to imagine. (They have remained on earth even to this very day, teaching and
assisting this author and influencing the lives, situations, political affairs, economic
outcomes, inventions, etc. of humans and nations.) At the end of every year, on September
22 nd, Joseph found himself once again in the presence of Moroni, who, acting in the pseudo-

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