# Joseph Smith

*1805–1844*

**Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844)** was the founding prophet of the Latter Day Saint movement, a religious visionary, translator, civic leader, and martyr whose theological imagination radically reshaped American Christianity. Born in Sharon, Vermont, and raised in the burned-over district of upstate New York, he reported a series of visions beginning in 1820 that culminated in the publication of the *Book of Mormon* in 1830 and the organization of the Church of Christ that same year. Over the next fourteen years, he led his followers from New York to Ohio, Missouri, and finally Illinois, founding the city of Nauvoo before being killed by a mob at Carthage Jail in June 1844.

Smith’s contributions extend well beyond institutional founding. He produced an expansive body of revelatory texts—including the *Doctrine and Covenants* and the *Pearl of Great Price*—revised the King James Bible, introduced temple liturgy and proxy ordinances for the dead, and articulated a distinctive theology of embodied, progressing deity. He served as mayor of Nauvoo, lieutenant general of its militia, and a candidate for President of the United States in 1844, advocating religious liberty, the abolition of slavery, and prison reform. His public sermons, especially the King Follett discourse, set forth a cosmology in which God was once as humanity is now and humans may, through grace and growth, become as God is.

Smith’s legacy resonates deeply with themes of human potential, intelligence, friendship, and divine becoming. He taught that “the first principles of man are self-existent with God,” that intelligences advance from grace to grace and from one small capacity to a great one, and that eternal life consists in learning to be Gods—language that anticipates a participatory and developmental account of theosis. He welcomed the inventiveness of the Gentiles as a means of building Zion, embraced truth from any source, and treated friendship as a principle designed to “revolutionize and civilize the world.” His insistence that revelation is ongoing, that prophecy belongs to all who hold the testimony of Jesus, and that happiness is the object and design of existence offers a generous foundation for those who seek to integrate faith, science, and technology in the work of human flourishing and exaltation.

## Quotations

- President Joseph Smith read the 14th chapter of Ezekiel—said the…
- If a skillful mechanic, in taking a welding heat
- After this instruction, you will be responsible for your own…
- God was once as we are now, and is an…
- Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and…
- The first principles of man are self-existent with God.
- Now the doctrine of translation is a power which belongs…
- I charged the Saints not to follow the example of the adversary in accusing the brethren
- I love that man better who swears a stream as…
- Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of “Mormonism”
- I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let…
- The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is,…
- A person filled with the love of God is not…
- The Saints can testify whether I am willing to lay down my life for my brethren.
- [The Gentiles] will make wonderful improvements in machinery of every…
- This day I have been walking through the most splended…
- This morning I read German and visited with a brother…
- Salvation cannot come without revelation; it is in vain for…
- Do you believe Joseph Smith, Jun.
- As concerning the resurrection, I will merely say that all…
- If tomorrow I shall be called to lie in yonder…
- Happiness is the object and design of our existence; and…
- One of the grand fundamental principles of “Mormonism” is to receive truth, let it come from whence 
- Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God
- How vain and trifling have been our spirits...
- The things of God are of deep import