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.12:2).Ezekiel credits the blindness to rebellion, which implies a willfulinternal enemy.Ezekiel expressly reports the opening of his own eyes in thecontext of anthropomorphic visions (Ezek.40:2 4; 44:5).Jeremiah also talksabout the blindness, and relates it to a loss of understanding (which impliesa lack of wisdom). Hear now this, O foolish people, without understanding,which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not ( Jer.5:21).Proverbs 1:2 33 also describes the forsaking of wisdom as preceding thedestruction of Jerusalem.The proximity the beginning of the Deuteronomistreforms to these charges of blindness invites reconsideration of the passagesin Deuteronomy that Barker cites to illustrate the group s claim that God hadnot been seen (Deut.4:12), their declaration that the written law would now bewisdom (Deut.4:6).In the Book of Mormon, Jacob, an exact contemporary of Ezekiel, and likeEzekiel a temple priest, also provides important details about the blindness:But behold, the Jews [that Lehi knew in Jerusalem in the periodbefore the destruction] were a stiffnecked people; and they despisedthe words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for thingswhich they could not understand.Wherefore, because of their blind-ness, which blindness came from looking beyond the mark, they mustneeds fall; for God hath taken his plainness away from them, and deliv-ered unto them many things which they cannot understand becausethey desired it.( Jacob 4:14)The mark to which Jacob refers must be the same mark mentioned inEzekiel 9:4.Margaret Barker has shown this mark (the letter tau) to refer tothe anointing of the first temple priests with the sign of the divine Name.She also cites traditions that the anointing oil was hidden away at the timeof Josiah.83 The anointing distinguished the priests of the first temple fromthose of the second, and stand directly behind the titles of Messiah and Christ,which both mean anointed. She has shown that Josiah s changes to the 172 sacred encounterstemple concerned the high priests and were thus changes at the very heart ofthe temple. 84The Book of Mormon invites us to look back at Jerusalem between theJosiah s reform and the exile as a time of controversy concerning both the pos-sibility of vision and the charge of blindness.Here Joseph Smith s restorationconverges on the key time, place, institutions, and issues involved in Barker sreconstruction of the first temple.As with the scriptures he produced, Smithalso led his community to emulate the ancients as he prayed at the dedicationof the Kirtland temple in 1836:For thou knowest that we have done this work through great tribula-tion; and out of our poverty we have given of our substance to build ahouse to thy name, that the Son of Man might have a place to mani-fest himself to his people.(Doctrine and Covenants 109:5) part iiiProphetic Legacy This page intentionally left blank 11Tracking the Sincere Believer: Authentic Religionand the Enduring Legacyof Joseph Smith Jr.Laurie F.Maffly-KippIn 1902, William A.Linn published a historical work entitled TheStory of the Mormons.That book became the most often cited treat-ment of the LDS Church written by a non-Mormon in the early twen-tieth century.Linn s exhaustive work includes more than six hundredpages of text, multiple appendices, and copious citations of the worksof Joseph Smith Jr., Lucy Mack Smith, and Parley P.Pratt, as well aspro-and anti-Mormon materials that Linn gathered while conductinghis research in the New York Public Library.In many respects, Linn svolume is a typical anti-Mormon exposé.Like other Gentiles whohad written before him, Linn sees Mormonism as a phenomenon ofinviting surfaces that gloss the evils lurking beneath.He believes thejob of the historian his job is to unveil the deceptions, to showMormonism for what it really is: a web of deceit spun by power-hungry leaders to ensnare the easily duped American public.The centerpiece of Linn s debunking enterprise is his exposureof Joseph Smith as a fraud.At the very opening of his history, Linnexplains that people in every time and place have been fooled by reli-gious impostors.There is something particular about Joseph Smith sdeceptions, however, Linn writes:It is true that the effrontery which has characterized Mor-monism from the start has been most daring.Its founder a 176 prophetic legacylad of low birth, very limited education, and uncertain morals; its be-ginnings so near burlesque that they drew down upon its originatorsthe scoff of their neighbors, the organization increased its member-ship as it was driven from one state to another, building up at lastin an untried wilderness a population that has steadily augmentedits wealth and numbers; doggedly defending its right to practise itspeculiar beliefs and obey only the officers of the Church.1Linn s comparison of Mormonism to a theatrical production a mockingand unoriginal imitation of religion put forward by a man who was probablyimmoral reveals Linn s own beliefs more than it describes Joseph Smith sfollowing then or now.In making this claim, Linn reveals an important as-sumption that deserves further exploration: He assumes that Joseph Smith ssincerity is inextricably linked to the truths of the Mormon faith.Because hejudges that Smith s intentions were not honest, the religion itself is rendereda sham.Religious truth is thus linked to Smith s personal sincerity defined asgenuine, honest, and free of duplicity.This issue still haunts discussions of Smith s legacy: Are the eternal truthsof Mormonism dependent on the sincerity of Joseph Smith? And a corollary tothat question: Does contemporary Mormon faith rest on the intentions of thefirst prophet?These may seem like inappropriate or even impudent questions to askduring the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith s 1805 birth.After all, in an im-portant sense, history is truth.Christianity is a religious tradition that makesboth historical and transhistorical claims: it is grounded in a historical nar-rative that is itself an element of its truth claim, yet Christianity is also wed-ded to ideals and principles that are thought to be eternal.When a Christianclaims to believe, he or she is confessing to believe in both a real-life story ofJesus death and resurrection, and also in timeless principles about the world.Mormons share these claims but add to them a testimony of the veracity ofJoseph Smith s revelations and of belief in a Father in Heaven who has beenrevealed and is continuing to reveal himself to humanity.Joseph Smith hasto be there, in the story, for the tradition to make sense.History must bein play.But it bears stating, as historian Kathleen Flake and others have so ablyshown us, that the historical account of the Mormon tradition can be toldin numerous ways; the narrative is not self-evident or unchanging.2 In otherwords, the history of early Mormonism doesn t have to be told in the way itusually is: by placing Smith s guilelessness and honesty front and center.Theremay be other options, other angles of vision that reveal elements obscured by tracking the sincere believer 177the shadow of Joseph Smith s personal story.Even if we do linger on Smith saccount, it is instructive to move away from the sincerity box, as I want to callit, to see the Mormon prophet in other lights.This essay attempts to do three different things.First, it explores how thenotion of sincerity has been used by believers and nonbelievers alike to makeclaims about the truth of Mormonism.Second, it focuses on sincerity as a con-cept and explores why it can be a problem rather than a solution
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