Abstract
Joseph Smith was an explorer, a discoverer, and a revealer of past worlds. He described an ancient America replete with elaborate detail and daring specificity, rooted and grounded in what he claimed were concrete, palpable artifacts. He recuperated texts of Adam, Abraham, Enoch, and Moses to resurrect and reconstitute a series of past patriarchal ages, not as mere shadows and types of things to come, but as dispensations of gospel fullness equaling, and in some cases surpassing, present plenitude. And he revealed an infinitely receding premortal past—not of the largely mythic Platonic variety and not a mere Wordsworthian, sentimental intimation—but a fully formed realm of human intelligences, divine parents, and heavenly councils.
My topic focuses first on this process of recovery, not its products. That will lead me to say a few things about the cumulative meaning for Joseph Smith of the past, of the worlds he discovered.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2005
Publisher Statement
Copyright © 2005, Brigham Young University Press. This article first appeared in BYU Studies 44:4 (2011). 55-68.
Recommended Citation
Givens, Terryl. "Joseph Smith: Prophecy, Process, and Plenitude ." BYU Studies 44, no. 4 (2005): 55-68.
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