Early Life and Marriage of Emma Smith

Emma Smith was born in 1804 in Pennsylvania. Her family was fairly well-off financially, and so Emma was well-educated for a woman of her time. She was a schoolteacher and even owned items of value, including cows. These may have been given as payment for teaching. Her family was religious, devoutly Christian. Everything in her life to adulthood had been designed to prepare her for a comfortable life as the wife of a traditional and probably successful man with a background similar to her own.

Instead, she fell in love with Joseph Smith, the son of a struggling farmer. His family cobbled together a living as best they could, always working hard at their various family industries, but never quite getting ahead. Joseph had completed only a few years of formal schooling, having learned the basics from his father in the years there were no schools nearby and then attending only about three years in a regular school. He was literate, but not enough to write a good letter, much less a book.

Furthermore, he had “unusual ideas about religion” and was the subject of a great deal of gossip. When Joseph Smith was fourteen, he went into the woods to pray about which church to join. God and Jesus Christ appeared to him and instructed him not to join any church, since none had the complete gospel. As a young adult, an angel named Moroni had appeared to him and taught him about a book of ancient scripture that testified of the Bible and of Jesus Christ. It would be called the Book of Mormon, after Moroni’s father, who abridged the ancient record. Moroni and other heavenly messengers would begin the long process of turning Joseph Smith into a prophet of the restored church.

All of this alarmed Emma’s family, even though Joseph was working hard to be worthy of Emma. He continued attending school while also working to help support his family. He was known as a dependable and honest worker, some describing him as the best worker they had ever hired.

Emma eloped with Joseph, since she did not have her family’s support to marry him. They lived with his family and then, for a while, lived with her family.

Emma Smith, Wife of a Prophet

Eventually, Moroni deemed Joseph ready to receive the ancient plates on which the Book of Mormon was written. He went to retrieve them and Emma rode along, remaining in the wagon to pray as he did so.

As the plates were being translated, they were stored under a cloth. She often moved them around as she cleaned, but felt no temptation to look under the cloth, being a woman of extraordinary faith.

Despite his best efforts, Joseph did not write or spell well enough to record the translations he made through inspiration. From time to time, Emma acted as his scribe. One day, as they were working, he looked up in a panic and asked her if the city of Jerusalem had been surrounded by walls. She told him it had been and he was relieved. He hadn’t known, and seeing the words on the plates he was translating, had been afraid he’d been deceived. Eventually, others would offer to scribe, freeing her to care for her home and family.

Emma Smith: A Life with Many Trials

Many of Emma’s children died young, including her first three, all of whom died even before they were named. A set of twins died and she had the opportunity to adopt another set immediately after. Their mother had died in childbirth and the father felt inadequate to care for them alone. One of these twins would die as a result of a mob invasion of their home. The twins were very ill, and shortly after Joseph had sent his wife to bed with the girl twin, who was finally asleep, and then had eventually gone to sleep himself by the other sleeping twin, a mob broke into the house and left the door wide open. They dragged Joseph out into the street and tarred and feathered him.   The little boy was caught in the draft, and already very ill, died soon after. She also lost one child at the age of fourteen months and an additional child within the coming year.

Life was hard for Emma. Losing so many children was heartbreaking enough, but she also lost her home many times. Mobs forced the Mormons from their homes, often in the midst of winter, and many times she was forced to flee with nothing. On occasion she had to escape with the children alone because the mobs continually had Joseph Smith arrested in hopes of destroying The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by removing its leaders from influence.

She often found herself having to live with other people after these upheavals, but she also frequently hosted other homeless people when she was the one with a home. While living in Illinois, a group of free African Americans arrived at her doorstep with bleeding feet and little to their name. They had been denied passage on a boat due to their race after their money for the trip had already been paid, and they had walked from the east coast to reach the Mormon settlement. She was at her door when she saw them coming and quickly brought them into her home and put them at her dinner table to eat with the family. She and Joseph invited them to stay on as guests until they could find jobs and homes. When all but one had been settled, she found the last woman, a teenager named Jane Manning, in tears over her inability to find work. Emma hired the girl herself, providing room and board as well as a salary.

As the president of the women’s auxiliary, known as the Relief Society, and as the wife of the prophet, she spent considerable time nurturing, comforting, and teaching other women, even when she herself was in need of comfort.

Revelation revealed that God considered her an elect lady, a term that is often used by Mormon women today to define how they should live their lives and cope with their trials.

Emma Smith and Polygamy

Emma did not have a long history of Mormon women to use as example. When new situations arose, she was often the first to have to cope with them. One challenge she faced was that of the doctrine of polygamy. She couldn’t turn to her neighbors for advice and comfort on making that revelation work successfully, as later women did.

When God revealed the doctrine of plural marriage to Joseph as part of the “restoration of all things,” Joseph could see the principle in the Book of Mormon, wherein the prophet Jacob explained that it was only acceptable during periods when God ordained it, and it was for the raising up of seed unto God.  Joseph couldn’t accept it or practice it or even reveal it for some years until he was warned and chastised by God.

At the time Joseph Smith was the prophet, only a small number of Latter-day Saints practiced polygamy, and everyone, male and female, struggled with feelings of uneasiness and uncertainty about how to handle it. As we see in the Bible, even the most righteous people in ancient times struggled with the practice. Abraham was forced to send his second family away. His grandson Jacob’s wives struggled with jealousy regularly.

Emma struggled as well. She accepted the revelation initially and worked to become comfortable with it. Then, Emma went back and forth between acceptance and avoidance.  One obvious reason, in addition to the principle’s effect in her private life, was that the Saints were already bitterly persecuted, and it was certain that persecution would increase should the Saints begin to practice plural marriage.  This indeed was the case.

There is no evidence that any children resulted from the plural marriages of Joseph Smith, with one woman writing in her journal that when the marriage was performed, Joseph shook her hand and they both went back to their separate homes. Joseph generally brought another man along to the proposal or asked a relative of the woman to do it for him. There was no courtship or romance involved in the process of finding a new wife. DNA testing has been done on descendants of all children whom critics of the Church believed were the result of Joseph’s other marriages, where there are descendants, and all tests have proven negative. Since Joseph was able to father children, it is clear he saw it as simply a way to join families in the afterlife, not as co-habiting marriage.

Regardless of the format of the marriages, Emma found it increasingly difficult to cope with them. Historian Richard Bushman says they had many deep and intense discussions on the subject and their marriage was severely strained.

Their relationship improved when the temple was completed. She was one of the first to perform the ordinances that allowed Mormons to make covenants to live a Christ-like life and afterwards, she worked in the temple, helping others as they did the same.

Emma Smith’s Life after Joseph Smith’s Murder

Despite her worries over polygamy, Emma continued to support Joseph Smith in his work as the prophet and to testify of him in that role. She cared for him and grieved mightily at his death. She took a lock of his hair from his body and wore it the rest of her life. Stories tell that she dreamed of him and their mansion in heaven shortly before her death, and that his name was on her lips at the time of her death.

Her actions after his death are one reason some Mormons have struggled to understand her. She was left with five children in a time when the Mormons were in great danger. She quickly realized her financial situation was complicated by the fact that in those early days of the Church, the family’s money and property was mingled with church property, something no longer done. It was unclear just what belonged to her and what belonged to the Church, particularly since Joseph often used his own money to support church needs, a practice that had generated debts she found herself responsible for.

She and Brigham Young, the new Mormon prophet, had disagreements over what she had a right to take and what belonged to the Church. She held onto some of the properties as a way to support herself and her children, but the struggle created a rift between her and church leaders, as well as some church members. Everyone in the Church was on edge as they realized they would have to flee once again and everyone feared for his or her life. This made people less considerate of her challenges than they might have been under normal circumstances.

As she found herself alienated from many church members, and because her health was poor, she chose to remain behind when the Mormons fled to Utah. Joseph’s mother also remained behind due to age and health. Over the years, Emma would help to care for Joseph’s mother. However, she initially left the city because she and her children were in danger from those who had killed her husband. When she returned, she struggled to support her family using the properties she owned.

She married Major Lewis Bidamon, a military man who was not Mormon but who had supported the Mormons during the attacks on them. He was the father of an illegitimate child. When he fathered another illegitimate child during their marriage, she took the child in and raised it as her own.

When Joseph Smith was murdered, some people had fought for control of the Church. One small group argued that the role of prophet and president ought to be handed down from father to son. Emma’s son was too young to fill the role, so these men decided to operate a splinter group from the Church in trust for him until he was of age.

He initially resisted their attempts. Emma had taught her children the Bible and Book of Mormon at home, but had avoided becoming associated with any other church. However, her son eventually agreed to head up the church that had been held for him. Emma dutifully joined, but never became active in the church. This church became known as The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is today known as The Community of Christ and is an evangelical church.  Over the years it has pulled farther and farther away from its origins.  It has about 250,000 members.

Evaluations of Emma Smith are colored by the expectations and motives of those who study her. Some Mormons want her to be perfect, an unrealistic expectation for any person, but particularly for one who faced so many complications and who was forced to pave a new path with no prior examples to follow. Non-Mormons often want her to serve as some sort of “proof” the Church was false. Either expectation is unfair to Emma and avoids the simple truth that she was a complex person who didn’t always live up to her own expectations for herself. She was thrown into a life for which she was little prepared and had to create her own path. She did the best she could under extraordinary circumstances. She retained her testimony of Joseph Smith all her life, even after she remarried. She struggled, as all people struggle, to fit her life to the expectations of God for His children, but she was noted as a kind and caring woman. Her mother-in-law stated that no other woman had endured so many trials with so much grace.

Mormons today are taught to honor and respect her, accepting that she was less than perfect, but acknowledging her essential contributions to the gospel, both in her own church work and in her support of her husband throughout his lifetime. Today, many of her descendants are returning to the church Joseph Smith led and are helping us to see them as real and complex people.

Sources:

Turley, Richard E., and Brittany A. Chapman. “A Comfort unto My Servant, Joseph.” Women of Faith in the Latter Days. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 2011. 343-362. Print.

Bushman, Richard L., and Jed Woodworth. Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. Print.

Joseph Smith was the first prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The members of this church, sometimes referred to as Mormons, consider the Book of Mormon to be a companion book to the Bible and a second witness of Jesus Christ. It was translated from plates written anciently and hidden away by a man named Moroni until Moroni, now an angel, led Joseph to the plates and tutored him in preparation for the restoration of the gospel. The plates were written in reformed Egyptian and the methods in which they were translated have been a popular topic of discussion. There has also been discussion about the errors in the book, which some mistakenly believe invalidate the record. Skousen’s research helps readers to better understand how the book came into being in modern times.

Mormons do not have the original plates on which the book was written, just as we no longer have the original scrolls on which the Bible were written. While the Biblical scrolls were lost or destroyed, the Book of Mormon plates were taken back into protective care by Moroni. The lack of both original records—those of the Bible and of the Book of Mormon—force us to act on faith and also challenge us to know what is true in comparison to the original records.

The original manuscript was written largely by scribes, who put into writing what Joseph Smith saw and translated to them verbally. Joseph had minimal education, as did many in the`1830s. Long after his wife had remarried and moved on to an apostate group, she said he did not have the skills to create the Book of Mormon or even to write the translation he carried out. The translation was made possible through the help of the Holy Ghost.

One challenge facing researchers is that most of the original transcription is gone. 116 pages were lost when his scribe took them to show his wife and they were stolen. However, this was actually prophesied in the Book of Mormon and had been prepared for. God had assigned the son of the first writer to record some of the same information in his own record, although he admitted that he didn’t know why he needed to do that.

The first draft of the manuscript was placed in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House in 1841. Unfortunately, when it was retrieved in 1882, most of it was ruined by water and mold. Only 28 percent is still extant and most of it is now owned by the Church.

A printer’s manuscript had been prepared based on the original and the Church of Christ owns all of that manuscript. They are a group that broke away from the main church after Joseph Smith died. The printer used the printer’s manuscript for all but the sections found in Helaman 13 through the end of Mormon. The remaining section is based on the original transcription copy.

Anytime manuscripts are written by a scribe or copied by hand, there are errors. This is why various Biblical manuscripts that have been uncovered are not identical. Skousen found that the scribes changed on average one or two things per page. These were textual changes affecting spelling of names or alteration of wording. Then the printer made additional errors in the typesetting, although he also made a sincere effort to correct them as he went. It was simply a difficult task that lent itself to errors.

In 1837, Joseph Smith himself did some editing for the next edition, in order to put it into more standard English.  He edited again in 1840 and this time he restored some phrases that had been missed in the copying process.

The errors that have crept into the manuscript are simply the usual problems of any book—typos, miscopied words, missing words. They do not affect the teachings of the book. The newest edition of the book clears up some of these problems. The truthfulness of God’s word is not based on the number of typos, but on the message contained within His books.

Read more about the project to study the Book of Mormon translation.

Joseph Smith was a teenager when choosing a religion became something of a trend in his area. His own family became involved in the process of visiting churches and revivals to decide on a church and some of them had settled on a church. Joseph, however, could not seem to come to a decision. He wanted to find a church, but the information he received as he listened to sermons and spoke with ministers was contradictory. It didn’t make sense to him that they all said they were right but they didn’t agree on what was true. He wondered how anyone could really know the truth.

In the process of trying to decide how to identify the true church, he wondered if they were all wrong, but that was too hard to accept—he wanted one of them to be true. Finally, he began to study the Bible for clues. He was fourteen years old when he came across a scripture that would change his world and the lives of millions of people from his time to the present.

James 1:5 says that if you lack wisdom, you can ask of God, and He will give you what you lack. In other words, if you don’t know what is true, ask God. Who is more qualified to tell you what is true? God knew what church was true.

Joseph decided to take the question to God as the Bible suggested. He went into woods to pray, his first attempt at praying aloud. There he saw a vision of God and Jesus Christ. God introduced Jesus Christ and instructed Joseph to listen to Him. He asked which church was true—because he really wanted one to be true—and was told none was entirely correct and so he must not join any of them. Later, as an adult, he would receive an angel who would tutor him in preparation for being the prophet who led the restoration of the church.

He would tell a few others of his experience. In his youth, he did not anticipate the anger his account would arouse in the local ministers. Since all he had wanted was the truth, he likely presumed they would be excited to know what was true, but of course, they were not, since their careers revolved around their current churches. It is likely this experience caused him to be more cautious in revealing all the details of his experience.

He did not, as far as we know, put the account into writing until 1832, two years after the church was formed. He wrote this account in a book he used to record correspondence. Joseph was not well educated, having lived in areas without schools most of his life. His father had given him the basics of reading, writing, and math, but he had only three years of formal schooling as a child. Most of his time was spent helping his struggling family make a living, not getting an education.

Anyone who has tried to record an emotionally intense and very significant experience knows the frustration of getting the experience onto paper. Even skilled writers struggle with matching the emotional impact to the ability to write about it. For someone with little training in the written word, it is a nearly impossible task. Joseph wrote that no one really knew his history—he simply could not completely record it in a way that accurately conveyed it.

Steven C. Harper, an official historian for the Church and an adjunct professor at the Church-owned Brigham Young University, has spent extensive time researching the question of the five accounts of the vision. He has spoken with the leading experts in the subject and handled the original documents himself. He has written several books on the subject and recently wrote an article outlining some of his findings.

Steven C. Harper, “Listening to Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Meridian Magazine

In the article, Harper explores one of the major points of controversy: How many beings did Joseph Smith see? His first account states that he saw the Lord. In 1838 and 1842, he writes that he saw two personages. The 1835 account, which is the most detailed concerning this event, says that he saw one personage and then another appeared. This account also mentions the presence of angels.

Each account was written for a different purpose and a different audience. As any writer or speaker knows, this impacts how much you reveal and how you word it. As an example, I often tell, when writing or speaking, of my first teaching assignment as a new church member. It’s a complex story and it teaches three distinct principles. I never tell the entire story. I select which events and which details to include based on the lesson I am teaching through that story. The fact that I leave out some important details does not mean they didn’t happen—it means they weren’t needed for that specific audience or lesson.

Harper notes that we don’t know that Joseph saw both beings at the same time or for the same amount of time. The picture traditionally shown is just a picture, not a photograph or movie of the actual events. It also appears Joseph didn’t know how, initially, to refer to the second personage since in the 1832 account, he wrote, “the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord.” The first instance was an insertion made after the initial sentence was written. It appears he decided to refer to the other personage as the Lord also and so was speaking of two beings, not one.

To fully understand the events of that day, we have to look beyond the specific words and into the heart of a young boy struggling to find the truth. The article referenced here goes into greater detail on that subject.

They differed from traditional religions which taught themselves as an unbroken continuation of the original church or as a protest against corruptions in doctrines. The restorationists did not want to change the existing church—they wanted to restore the original church, which they believed was lost. Two leading restorationist movements of that time were a group incorrectly called Campbellites, led by Alexander Campbell, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, led by Joseph Smith. Some early church members joined the Mormons (the nickname sometimes applied to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) from the Campbellite movement, including Sydney Rigdon, a leading preacher in that organization.

The proper name of the Campbellites is the Disciples of Christ. The group began with Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander Campbell. They were former Irish Presbyterian ministers. Thomas formed an organization called the Christian Association of Washington in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Alexander formed a related organization and joined with the Baptists, where he preached only from the Bible. However, he felt the Bible repudiated infant baptism and the eternal condemnation of infants who died without baptism, which upset some listeners. Others were offended at his insistence that baptism by immersion by those old enough to make the decision, was necessary.

He eventually separated from the Baptists, taking with him Sydney Rigdon and Walter Scott. Rigdon, a Baptist preacher, continued his preaching circuit, but now avoided denominational issues, since one goal of the Campbellites was to unify the Christian faith into one single body that focused only on 1^st century Christianity. Rigdon’s ministry taught only faith, repentance, baptism for the remission of sins, and the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Soon, there emerged an intersection between the two restoration faiths. Parley P. Pratt, a minister for the Campbellites, encountered the Book of Mormon. He was so enthralled by it he read it in just one day and night, having no desire for food or rest. He gained a testimony by the Holy Ghost of its truthfulness and went in search of Joseph Smith. He instead met Joseph’s brother Hyrum. He was soon baptized.

Pratt, in his previous ministry, had known Sydney Rigdon. Rigdon had brought many people into the Campbellite’s organization, including Orson Hyde, who devoted much of his time to preaching against the Book of Mormon, which he had heard about, but not read more than a few segments of. Eventually, he felt uncomfortable teaching something he had not actually read for himself, so he sought Joseph Smith to learn about the book from an authentic source.

When he arrived, Hyde learned Sydney Rigdon had left the Campbellites through the missionary efforts of Parley P. Pratt and become a Mormon. Hyde also converted. All three of these men—Parley P. Pratt, Orson Hyde, and Sydney Rigdon would become Mormon apostles. Elder Pratt would help to bring about 150 members of the Campbellits into the new church.

Joseph Smith was the prophet and president of this new church, which was also restoration-oriented. However, he taught that Jesus Christ Himself was restoring the Church to the earth, whereas the Campbellites were merely trying to establish proper teachings by studying the Bible to find out what was true. Joseph Smith taught that in ancient times, a group of people had left Jerusalem by commandment from God, eventually coming to the American continent, where they settled among whatever native peoples were already here. They had prophets and as much of the Bible as was in use at the time of the Fall of Jerusalem. Jesus Christ had come to them for a few days soon after his resurrection and helped them to organize their church.

These people had largely been destroyed during a great war. One faction, the Nephites, had been completely destroyed, and when the war ended, the other faction, the Lamanites, continued to attack one another. It is likely only a small civilization remained at the conclusion.

The last of the Nephites, Moroni, had concluded and hidden the record of his people, which he, as an angel, led Joseph Smith to retrieve. Joseph translated them through inspiration and the manuscript, called the Book of Mormon, after Moroni’s father, served as a companion book to the Bible, which the Mormons also used.

Joseph taught that Jesus had told him the fullness of the gospel was no longer on the earth. This was clear since so many churches existed, even within the Protestant tradition. There was no longer any agreement on what God really wanted us to know or to do. Joseph’s role was to restore the gospel and to continue the tradition of prophets established by God as the way for God to communicate His will in changing times.

The restoration movement of the Campbellites and other similar movements helped to prepare the way for the restoration of the gospel, demonstrating how carefully God plans His work. Many who joined the church and became its leaders in the early days were seeking New Testament Christianity and believed it no longer existed on the earth. The Campbellites, who taught minimal doctrine, helped give them a small but important focus on key elements of New Testament Christianity—faith, repentance, baptism, and the atonement’s power to save even infants.

By the time these people encountered the Mormons, their hearts had been opened to the idea of a restoration and were prepared to turn to God for confirmation that they had found it in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

More information on early Mormonism:

HistoryofMormonism.com