Summary of Church Historical Topics

A scholarly overview of the major historical and doctrinal issues in Latter-day Saint history, with links to full analysis on this site.

The First Vision

Joseph Smith’s account of a divine visitation in 1820 stands as the foundational event of Latter-day Saint theology. The church teaches this experience as the restoration of lost truths and the calling of a modern prophet. However, historical research has surfaced at least nine distinct accounts of this event, recorded between 1832 and 1842, which differ in significant ways regarding who appeared, the purpose of the vision, and what was said.

The earliest known account, written in Joseph Smith’s own hand in 1832, does not mention the Father and Son appearing together, nor does it describe the context of seeking forgiveness for sins. Later accounts progressively elaborate on these elements. Scholars such as Dean Jessee and James Allen have documented this evolution, raising legitimate questions about the narrative’s development over time.

The absence of any contemporaneous corroboration from the Palmyra religious community, combined with the evolving nature of the accounts, invites careful scrutiny. A full examination of the First Vision accounts, their historical context, and the scholarly literature is available at First Vision Accounts.

Book of Mormon Origins

The Book of Mormon is presented as an ancient record of Israelite migrations to the Americas, translated by Joseph Smith through divine means. The traditional account describes Smith using the Urim and Thummim, a set of special interpreters found with the plates, to render the text into English. More recent historical recovery, however, shows that Smith primarily used a seer stone placed in a hat, with his face buried in the hat to exclude light — a process quite different from the version depicted in official church artwork and narrative.

Archaeological, anthropological, and genetic evidence presents significant challenges to the Book of Mormon’s historical claims. No Old World script, Hebrew-derived language, or DNA lineage linking ancient Israelites to pre-Columbian American populations has been identified. The Smithsonian Institution and National Geographic Society have formally stated that the Book of Mormon is not used as a guide for archaeological research.

Anachronisms in the text — including references to horses, steel, chariots, wheat, barley, and elephants in pre-Columbian contexts — remain unresolved by LDS apologists. Detailed treatment of translation methodology and historical evidence is available at Book of Mormon Translation and Book of Mormon Archaeology.

Polygamy

Joseph Smith privately practiced plural marriage beginning as early as 1833 and formally introduced the doctrine to a small circle of trusted associates by 1841–1842. At the time, Smith publicly denied the practice on multiple occasions, including a formal statement in 1844 published in the Times and Seasons. His practice included marriages to women already legally married to living husbands (polyandry), to teenagers as young as fourteen, and to pairs of sisters.

Brigham Young continued and expanded polygamy after the pioneer trek west, with the practice eventually involving tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints before the 1890 Manifesto officially suspended it under pressure from the United States federal government. The sequence of events — federal prosecution, threat of property seizure, and then revelation — raises questions about the divine or pragmatic origins of that discontinuation.

The church’s Gospel Topics Essay on plural marriage acknowledges many of these facts for the first time in an official capacity. A detailed scholarly analysis is provided at Polygamy — Joseph Smith and Polygamy in Utah.

Priesthood Restoration

The LDS church teaches that the Aaronic Priesthood was restored in May 1829 by the resurrected John the Baptist, and the Melchizedek Priesthood was subsequently restored by the apostles Peter, James, and John. These events are foundational to the church’s claims of divine authority. Critically, however, neither event was recorded contemporaneously — both accounts surface in church literature years after the claimed events occurred.

Early church documents and histories from the 1830s, including the Book of Commandments (1833) and early editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, do not contain references to angelic ordinations. These references were added to later editions. Historian Richard Bushman and others acknowledge the retrospective nature of early priesthood restoration narratives in the historical record.

The timing and development of priesthood authority claims has significant implications for the church’s exclusive truth claims. A thorough analysis of the textual and historical evidence is presented at Priesthood Restoration.

Race and the Priesthood

From roughly 1852 until 1978, the LDS church barred men of African descent from holding the priesthood and barred both men and women of African descent from receiving temple ordinances, including those considered necessary for the highest degree of exaltation. This policy affected Black members throughout the world and was defended for over a century by church leaders as divinely ordained.

Justifications given by successive church presidents included theological claims derived from the pre-mortal existence, the so-called “curse of Cain,” and statements by Brigham Young and others that Black individuals were “fence-sitters” in the war in heaven. The church’s 2013 Gospel Topics Essay on Race and the Priesthood explicitly repudiates these rationales, stating they were “theories” and “without foundation in scripture.”

This repudiation raises serious questions about prophetic infallibility and the reliability of church leadership as a source of divine truth, given that the racist rationales were taught as doctrine by multiple prophets and apostles over more than a century. Full documentation and analysis is available at Race and the Priesthood.

Book of Abraham

In 1835 Joseph Smith acquired Egyptian papyri from a traveling exhibition and subsequently produced the Book of Abraham, which he represented as a direct translation of writings by the patriarch Abraham. This text became canonized in the Pearl of Great Price and contains significant theological content, including the doctrine of multiple gods (Abraham 4–5) and pre-mortal existence. For over a century the original papyri were presumed lost, rendering translation claims impossible to verify.

In 1966, a portion of the original papyri was rediscovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and returned to the church. Egyptologists, both LDS and non-LDS, subsequently examined these documents. The papyri are common funerary texts — specifically portions of the Egyptian Book of Breathings — and bear no relationship to the content of the Book of Abraham as produced by Joseph Smith.

Additionally, the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham include interpretations by Joseph Smith that Egyptologists universally identify as incorrect. The church’s Gospel Topics Essay on the Book of Abraham acknowledges these challenges while suggesting alternative theories of translation. A full scholarly analysis, including the facsimile interpretations, is provided at Book of Abraham.

Each of the topics above is examined in depth elsewhere on this site. The goal of this overview is to orient new readers to the scope and scholarly weight of the evidence, and to assist those who are beginning to investigate these questions for the first time. We encourage readers to engage the primary sources and the full analyses linked throughout this summary.