JOSEPH SMITH: The Making of a Prophet

Was Joseph Smith a true prophet or a religious pretender? Vogel, who edited the five-volume series Early Mormon Documents, attempts to answer this and other questions in this somewhat tedious, workmanlike psychological biography of Smith. In his youth, Vogel says, Smith experienced a dream about gold tablets and the angel Moroni that he later shaped into a narrative of his prophetic calling. Vogel performs a close reading of the Book of Mormon in search of clues to the development of Smith's religious life, arguing that while the book reveals Smith's own inner religious conflicts—his beliefs about eternal damnation, for example—the process of "translating" the Book of Mormon exposes a religious leader who was willing to use any means at hand to secure his prophetic authority. Vogel also questions whether the gold plates were really delivered to Smith by an angel or whether Smith fashioned them himself, for he would not let anyone see them uncovered. Vogel's speculations that Smith engaged in deception to obtain his status as God's chosen man will certainly provoke strenuous objections, but his tone is a careful balance of criticism and admiration. The book's chief flaw is that it does not fulfill its own ambitious goals. After an introduction in which Vogel declares his intention to draw upon family-systems theory to analyze the Smith family's dysfunctionality and to use his research on the methods of the charlatan to better understand Smith as a religious pretender, the biography veers off into other directions and ends abruptly at the height of Smith's career. (Apr. 4)