Twenty (1825)
Joseph’s Image in the Community
Many in the community outside of Joseph’s family took note that Joseph seemed to
be one of the laziest among his family. Others produced affidavits that accused the Smith
family of many negative things, but particularly they mentioned the young Joseph. A
renowned Mormon apologist, Hugh Nibley, later wrote:
Everybody says Joseph Smith was lazy because of the things he didn’t do; but
what about the things he did do? What good does it do to say that you, with
your tiny routine of daily busywork, think another man is lazy if that man
happens to accomplish more than ten ordinary men in a short lifetime?
Joseph Smith’s activities are a matter of record and they are phenomenal. You
might as well claim that Horowitz doesn’t know how to play the piano to a
man who owns a library of Horowitz recordings, or that Van Gogh couldn’t
paint to the owner of an original Van Gogh, or that Dempsey couldn’t fight to
a man who had fought him, as to maintain that Joseph Smith was a lazy
loafer to the historian who gets dizzy merely trying to follow him through a
few short years of his tremendous activity. I think this constantly reiterated
unfailing charge that Joseph Smith was a raggle-taggle, down-at-the-heels,
sloppy, lazy, good-for-nothing supplies the best possible test for the honesty
and reliability of his critics. Some of them reach almost awesome heights of
mendacity and effrontery when, like Mrs. Brodie, they solemnly inform us
that Joseph Smith, the laziest man on earth, produced in a short time, by his
own efforts, the colossally complex and difficult Book of Mormon.^45What Hugh Nibley could never explain was, first, why Joseph’s neighbors thought he
was lazy, and, second, what he was doing while everyone else seemed to be laboring
constantly. Nibley could only account for what Joseph did after he received possession of the
plates on September 22, 1827. Before this time, Joseph did not always perform the mundane
but necessary labor expected of rural life at that time. Instead, he was pursuing a “college
degree” from what could rightfully be called, “The Institute for the Mysteries of God” (IMG).
Joseph Hid the Real Truth in Symbolism
Joseph needed to master the ability to keep the real truth to himself and give the
people what they wanted, as they desired it. He needed to learn to give “revelation from
God” and public sermons that hid the “mysteries of the kingdom of heaven,” while still
providing the people the opportunity to choose between the good and the bad, delivering
the message in the religious-flavored tone they expected. Joseph was not allowed to speak
in plainness as part of the mandate to never disclose his true identity. And he never did.
However, the development of the LDS Temple Endowment^46 offered Joseph the
opportunity to reveal to the people the true meaning of many aspects of real truth, although
still cloaked in symbolism, as required by his mandate. As continually mentioned, although
presented in simplicity and plainness, especially when one uses common sense in
considering the symbolism, the LDS/Mormons who receive their temple endowment sit
during its presentation with blind eyes and deaf ears as the “mysteries of God...in full”^47 are