Which historians thought/think Joseph Smith was a knowing fraud?
 

I believe Brodie argued this.

Bushman does not.

What about other historians?

And when I say "knowing fraud", I mean was he a charlatan who knew he was making things up for his personal gain VERSUS was he someone who actually believed he had a unique connection with God, etc.

The reason I ask this is because a friend has said that he believes JS was a charlatan/fraud, specifically a "knowing fraud."

I told him that I disagreed, and that most modern historians bear this out.

Then he said "what historians," and I realized that I was speaking from a general knowledge or perception of the scholarship, and not a specific one.

Certainly Bushman does not think Smith is a knowing fraud. Harold Bloom, although not a historian, does not consider him a knowing fraud. I want to say that I read in Brodie's biography, that it said that while Brodie considered him a knowing fraud, that the history that has followed does not take this same approach.

So what about the other historians and biographies after Brodie?

If my friend were to make a list of reasons why he thinks JS is a knowing fraud, it mainly has to do with abuses of money, sex, and desire for power. I.e. Kirtland bank, marriage/sex with other men's wives, and Nauvoo in general.

Now what are the arguments that he was not. I think, in essence, it is that JS cannot be boiled down to just one trick. And that is what he would be, if he were a knowing fraud. He displayed too much "religious genius" (Bloom's words), he attracted followers that were solid people (not all of them, but many of them--I don't think early Mormonism=Jonestown), he is just too complex, too fervent, to have not considered himself a prophet. And not only that, he paid too high a price, for too long, to do it the way he did it, if it was merely about sex and money and prestige.

If you read D&C, at least to me, there is a prophetic voice there. Not a PT Barnum voice. But a prophetic voice that believes what it says.

Anyway, I have brought a pea shooter to a gun fight, I need to know what the scholarship says, and I would prefer to get that information without actually reading books. :)

Quinn does not believe nor does Hardy, well maybe he does. The guy who wrote in Sacred Loneliness probably doesn't believe that.

Seriously, Waters, this is so stupid. Nowadays historians don't approach subjects like Joseph Smith trying to make a case for his being a knowing fraud or not. They will often talk about the first vision as if it really happened because that is part of the story. That doesn't mean they really believe it happend. They may discuss the evolution of the first vision story but not belabor it.

Nowadays pretty much everyone with credentials and horsepower to write an admired biography of Paul, Muhammad, Luther, Joseph Smith, etc., assumes that things like heavenly visitations don't really happen.

Yes, Brodie's biography is quite unusual. It's admired more as 1) a ground breaking study that continues to influence, and 2) a work of art, than as a biography per se.

Here's the bottom line. Whether Joseph Smith was a "knowing fraud" isn't important to just about everyone on the planet except you. Really, who cares about his subjective state. It's speculative. What do you mean anyway? The legal definition of fraud? I could endlessly quibble on either side of the fraud question if you gave me any permutation of hypothetical facts about Joseph Smith.

I knew that your lack of evidence and argument would bother you.

this guys thinks JS is a fraud:
http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Mind-Jo...3585256&sr=1-1

Written by a psychiatrist. From what I gather, he is doing some kind of psychoanalysis by comparing what Joseph Smith wrote in the BoM (as a kind of autobiography) with his earlier life events. I guess he is saying that the BoM was a kind of narcissistic comic book that allowd JS to exact psychic revenge against the people that had caused him pain. ????? I guess this is taking the Brodie approach to the extreme.

If we can say that there are three approaches to viewing JS's state of mind:
1) that he was a fraud, and piecing together the evidence that shows it
2) making no judgment as to whether he was a fraud, but gathering the facts and observations and placing it in historical context
3) that he was a prophet, or at the very least someone who thought he was a prophet, and piecing together the evidence that shows it.

Why is it that people like SU are horrified at #3, but exultant about #1? Well, maybe he would say "in the 21st century, intelligent people know that all claims about God are fraudulent." Ok. But man is that a boring, dogmatic approach to things. I've met many, many people that have claimed extraordinary spiritual events. Not hearsay. But directly from their mouths. Are they all frauds? I don't think so. Are they all perfect people without blemish in their personal lives? I don't think so.

The more a person is smugly certain they have arrived at their (facile) conclusion, the more one should doubt their ability. This is complex. People are complex. Joseph Smith was certainly complex.

Dan Vogel is in the "knowing fraud" camp.

as discussed in the reviews of this anthology:
http://www.amazon.com/Prophet-Puzzle...3586341&sr=1-1