If We Had Been in the Days of Our Fathers
March 24th, 2022 by G.
They say that Joseph Smith made the mistake of being a prophet in the modern era where all his foibles and hiccups could be recorded, and all the allegations and slanders against him could be written down.
Whereas everybody loves the old prophets because we only have the official story now.
Maybe.
But I think prophets are always shocking and controversial in their own times. Its just that Joseph Smith is part of the same culture as we are. We can feel what’s controversial about him in our bones. We feel the shock.
Whereas for the old guys, we don’t. The way they cut across the grain of their existing social consensus is either opaque to us or just something that doesn’t impinge in any way.
jorgen
March 24, 2022
He’s like Mohammed in that way. And both were all about having harems.
MC
March 24, 2022
A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
E.C.
March 24, 2022
You know, I’ve been thinking about this a lot. One of my friends (who recently left the church) was complaining a while back that all the Apostles are old white men. And it struck me that prophets are always from some class hated by their people. Who does our culture hate most? White men – old white men being the worst because our culture hates the elderly. Age reminds them too much of their own mortality.