Without Disclosing My True Identity
influence his ability to determine what to communicate and how to communicate that which
was needful to the people, in oral and written form. When the Brothers (who had personal,
hands-on experience for many hundreds of years in these areas) were through instructing
Joseph over these four years,^7 there would not be a “learned” person^8 on the earth who
could confront, debate, or contend with the young man from upstate New York.^9 Joseph
needed this intelligence not only to understand human nature—and therefore be able and
willing to deal with the other mortals who would later come into his life—but also to be
proficient enough in the things of the world to give the people what they would desire of
their free will.
The LDS/Mormon history is fascinating and full of details that have convinced
many people that Joseph Smith, Jr. was not a normal man. Some have called him a genius.^10
Others have called him an opportunistic, narcissistic egomaniac,^11 whose only desire was to
take advantage of people’s ignorance and desire to believe in something religious.
Nevertheless, millions have come to call him a “prophet, seer, and revelator,”^12 who
singlehandedly won the hearts of his followers, started a few major cities, built temples, and
introduced a new religion. Furthermore, he also managed to aggravate the political powers
of American politics to such a degree that the highest authorities in the land eventually
simply stood by and did nothing while others sought for his extermination.
A Typical Teenager Leads an Otherwise Typical Life
Whatever way his “name should be had for good and evil among all nations,
kindreds, and tongues, or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all
people,”^13 before his education began on September 22, 1823, Joseph Smith, Jr. was nothing
more than a typical, poor, rural farm boy living with his impoverished family in the State of
New York, in the United States of America. But after his education, he was the smartest,
fully mortal human being upon earth.
NOTES
(^1) BOM, Moroni 7:9.
(^2) BOM, Ether 4:15.
(^3) JSH 1:54.
(^4) JSH 1:60.
(^5) BOM, Alma 12:10.
(^6) “I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have of the glories of the kingdoms
manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive them.”
(DHC, 5:402, emphasis added.)
(^7) Isaiah 28:10; BOM, 2 Nephi 28:30.
(^8) BOM, 2 Nephi 9:28–9.
(^9) BOM, Alma 32:23; 1 Cor. 1:27; D&C, 10:42.
(^10) For example see Harold Bloom, The American Religion: the emergence of the post-Christian
nation (New York: Simon, 1992) 101. “I can only attribute to his genius or daemons his uncanny