Further information on Mormon history as an academic field: Mormon studies
Mormon handcart pioneers are memorialized on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Mormon religion is predicated on what are said to be historical events such as the First Vision of Joseph Smith and the historicity of the Book of Mormon, which describes a detailed pre-Columbian history of the Americas.[1] Joseph Fielding Smith, the tenth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), declared that "Mormonism, as it is called, must stand or fall on the story of Joseph Smith. He was either a prophet of God, divinely called, properly appointed and commissioned, or he was one of the biggest frauds this world has ever seen. There is no middle ground."[2] As Jan Shipps has written, "Mormonism, unlike other modern religions, is a faith cast in the form of history," and until after World War II, Mormons did not critically examine the historical underpinnings of their faith; any "profane" investigation of the church's history was perceived "as trespassing on forbidden ground."[3]
Although traditional Christianity is likewise a history religion,[4] few primary sources survive from two or three millennia ago, and biblical places such as Jerusalem, Jericho, and Bethlehem, are acknowledged to exist by scholars of every religious persuasion. Likewise, the Assyrian and Babylonian empires mentioned in the Bible are treated in all histories of the ancient Near East. By contrast, locations of Book of Mormon places are disputed even by Mormons, and the existence of those places is not acknowledged by any non-Mormon scholars. Martin Marty, a Lutheran scholar of American religion, has observed that LDS beginnings are so recent "that there is no place to hide. ... There is little protection for Mormon sacredness."[5]
^"The foundations of the Church are grounded in a series of historic events, without which the Restoration would be incomprehensible and impotent." Douglas F. Tobler and S. George Ellsworth, "History, Significance to Latter-Day Saints," in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 596.
^"If Joseph Smith was a deceiver, who willfully attempted to mislead the people, then he should be exposed; his claims should be refuted, and his doctrines shown to be false, for the doctrines of an impostor cannot be made to harmonize in all particulars with divine truth. If his claims and declarations were built upon fraud and deceit, there would appear many errors and contradictions, which would be easy to detect."McConkie, Bruce R., ed. (1971). Doctrines of Salvation, Vols. 1-3: Sermons and Writings of Joseph Fielding Smith. Bookcraft. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-57008-646-5. as quoted by Cowan, Marvin W. (1997). Mormon Claims Answered. Retrieved 2006-11-11.
^Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years Among the Mormons (Urbana: University of Illinois, 2000), 164-65.
^For instance, in I Corinthians 15. 14, St. Paul says, "if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain and your faith is also vain." (KJV)
^Martin Marty, "Two Integrities: An Address to the Crisis in Mormon Historiography," in George D. Smith, ed., Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 174. Faithful History is a collection of essays expressing different views about how to approach the history of the LDS Church. The work includes essays written by two articulate Church apologists, Louis Midgley and David Earl Bohn, although neither is a historian.
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