However, the sources that Neville uses to substantiate this claim are misused and misunderstood. 6 Joseph’s Literary Capabilities and Perusal of TheologyĬentral to Neville’s thesis is the assumption that, despite all historical evidence to the contrary, Joseph Smith was well-versed and well-studied in early American Christian theology. 5 In this review, I will demonstrate how this discussion is another modern manufacture, yet another specimen of the long line of pseudo-historical claims made by Jonathan Neville. Instead, says Neville, there are just “probabilities” based on his own (mis)readings of historical sources and his own presuppositions. By Neville’s own admission there is no “conclusive direct evidence” that he can provide to support any of the claims in his book. The people who would have known Joseph certainly could have talked to those around him - and yet we don’t have anyone claiming such influence, nor do any claim that he was well-versed in Edwards’s writings. Edwards’s works were, after all, available in the bookstore of Joseph’s hometown, and they were widely published in the early American republic. Indeed, the lack of any early claim that Joseph was influenced by Edwards is significant for a couple of reasons. 3 In both cases, the purported similarities are superficial, any connection was unremarked upon by contemporaries (even those who were well acquainted with both works), and more easily explained by a common source shared by both.Īs with Swedenborg, Joseph’s supposed reliance on Edwards was unnoticed until the modern era. Neville’s portrayal of Edwards and Joseph Smith, however, has much in common with the dubious claim that Joseph was influenced by Emanuel Swedenborg’s ideas about heaven. I will now respond to Neville’s new hypothesis that Joseph Smith read and studied the teachings of Jonathan Edwards from an early age, ultimately incorporating Edwardsian language into his translation of the Book of Mormon. My previous review responded to his claims that (1) Joseph Smith memorized and recited Isaiah from memory rather than translate it from the Book of Mormon record (2) Joseph Smith tricked his close friends and family, making them believe that he was translating the aforementioned sections of the Book of Mormon (3) many witnesses to the Book of Mormon are not to be believed and (4) we should instead rely on sources hostile to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to properly understand Joseph’s translation effort.
He resorts to multiple double standards to force the historical narrative into the shape required by his theories. This scenario contradicts the historical record, and Neville uses sources disingenuously to impose his idiosyncratic and wholly modern worldview onto Joseph Smith and his contemporaries.Īs I have demonstrated in my recent review of A Man That Can Translate, 1 Jonathan Neville consistently misuses and misquotes historical sources. Neville attempts to make Joseph a literary prodigy, able to read and reformulate eight volumes of Edwards’s sermons - with enough genius to do so, but not enough genius to learn the words without Edwards’s help. However, most of Neville’s findings regarding Edwards and other non-biblical sources are superficial and weak, and many of his findings have a more plausible common source: the language used by the King James Bible. Neville cites various words or ideas that he believes originate with Edwards as the original source for the Book of Mormon’s language. In Infinite Goodness, Neville claims that Joseph Smith’s vocabulary and translation of the Book of Mormon were deeply influenced by the famous Protestant minister Jonathan Edwards. $22.99 (paperback).Ībstract: This is the second of two papers reviewing Jonathan Neville’s latest books on the translation of the Book of Mormon.
Salt Lake City: Digital Legends Press, 2021. Review of Jonathan Neville, Infinite Goodness: Joseph Smith, Jonathan Edwards, and the Book of Mormon.
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