Joseph Smith had an answer for everything. He took being a “prophet, seer and revelator” very serious. What good is a prophet if he can’t prophesize?
Find some bones in a field? “an officer who fell in battle, in the last destruction among the Lamanites, and his name was Zelph ” (Heber C. Kimball Journal). You can even buy a book on it
Find a pile of rocks in a field? “There is the place where Adam offered up sacrifice after he was cast out of the garden.” [1]
His older brother Alvin dies before he can be baptized? Receives revelation on baptism for the dead.
Lets contrast this to our current Prophets. Asked about transgender individuals, Then Elder Oaks said
This question concerns transgender, and I think we need to acknowledge that while we have been acquainted with lesbians and homosexuals for some time, being acquainted with the unique problems of a transgender situation is something we have not had so much experience with, and we have some unfinished business in teaching on that.
Dallin H Oaks press conference, Jan. 27, 2015.
The Prophets do not know why the priesthood was withheld from those of black ancestry.
Our current Prophets don’t know about sealings of multiple wives in the next life
That same principle applies to unanswered questions about sealings in the next life or desired readjustments because of events or transgressions in mortality. There is so much we do not know that our only sure reliance is to trust in the Lord and His love for His children.
Oaks Oct 2019 Conf Address
I can’t find one instance of Joseph Smith saying “I don’t know” to some theological question, or if he did say it, he probably followed it up with a “let me ask God and I’ll get back to you”. And the next day there was a new section to the D&C!
Why do you think this is so? How come the early prophets had specific answers, and our current prophets have a lot of “trust in the Lord” answers to difficult questions?
[1] Heber C. Kimball, as quoted in Otten & Caldwell, Sacred Truths of the Doctrine & Covenants, v. 2, pp. 278-279; also in The Life of Heber C. Kimball, pp. 209-210
Wheat & Tares 
Because Joseph made it all up as he went along. And the current leaders admit that there are many things we just don’t know….and that is the truth.
D&C 130:16
I don’t know the answer. I’ll get back to you when I do.
I think it is because of the continued practice of answering questions lead to embarassing and contradicting answers with the passage of time. The second generation proclaimed answers to Jesus’ polygamy status, Adam God, Age of the Earth, Curse of Cain, pre existence race doctrine, etc.
Any religious institution must become conservative to survive, else consistency in any form is lost. Because our institutional authority derives from historical events, we can’t continuously give answers that will be rejected by the next generation.
ChrisClarke, that’s an interesting insight.
Is there any religious institution that hasn’t become more conservative and (I interpolating from your thought) more dogmatic over time? Is there any whose original principles have withstood the challenge of time? Judaism is older than about anything I can think of. They have different versions and practices but have their principles remained constant? Do they enforce their borders rigorously? Is it constructive that they have community members who consider themselves part of the tribe without necessarily practicing the institutional religion? They have remained identified by the Old Testament. Would that constitute proof of your assertion?
I’m genuinely interested in what we can learn from this premise.
JR
“16 I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face.”
I don’t understand why anyone would downvote that citation.
Alice & Chris—the nature of institutions to acquire a shape and form is an interesting observation.
As is the way they can evolve.
That would make a great post on its own.
The Community of Christ has become less conservative (even liberal.)
Extra points to Brother Marsh for finding a quote from Joseph Smith where he did not know the answer. (D&C 130:16) I had read this int he past, but did not remember it in this context!
Actually, a woman found it first.
Visionary prophets seem to struggle with religious institutions, and institutionally-programmed saints seem to struggle with visionaries.
In Dostoevsky’s chapter “The Grand Inquisitor,” Jesus suddenly appears on the scene, and, while recognizing Him, the Inquisitor says something to the effect of, “you can’t be here, you already did what you did—your atonement-thing is finished.”
Makes me wonder how much the institution shapes the image of our spiritual experience: for example, if Jesus Christ appeared tomorrow, and he was short, pale, thin, with receding brown hair, beady brown eyes, and an awkward nose—if he looked like nothing close to the artistically-rendered Jesus Portraits so many people imagine when they pray…
Would we still believe? How many would slip into faith crisis?
The institution can shape the religious experience by offering idols of perception: “I know revelation sounds like this, and Jesus looks like that,” or “God would never make a foolish man into a prophet,” or “the true church would never have a controversy birth or childhood,” “God would never do this,” “I know the church is true,” and so forth.
Careful, lest we build our houses on sand or rocky gravel or uneven ground.
W&T does a good job illustrating how dysfunctional our Church has become – and, unfortunately, the principal of institutional inertia (especially as this apply to conservative churches) all but guarantees it will stay that way.
I wish Joseph Smith would’ve relied on the phrase “We don’t know” a bit more.
I love this one- I believe they are being more honest…. we don’t know. We seem to hold onto past people’s assurances of knowledge with a vice like grip though. This is one of the many problems I have- if the point of a belief is anchored in an afterlife, but then we don’t know a lot of the questions related to the afterlife, then why are we so concerned with it? (Baptisms, sealings )? I would much prefer to concern myself with helping alleviate suffering of those who are alive.
To be fair, given what we know about Joseph’s sense of humor, I think a lot of his so called “prophecies” and other anecdotes are simply him having fun with others. When I think of the story of Zelph, I can easily picture him walking a few trees away a few minutes later, and having a good laugh.
I think there could be one or two other reasons though. Joseph mentioned essentially that all the persecutions he received kept him humble, since all the revelation he received could easily make him arrogant. I think the opposite can also be true; because of all the persecution, the Lord might allow revelation to flow for even some of the most trivial things so as to help the Prophet to face the challenges he had to.
Additionally, Joseph was essentially introducing revelation to a people somewhat foreign to it, as well as somewhat being the Bishop, SP, and RSP all rolled into one. I often wonder what a publication would look like that took the most inspired thing a Bishop or RSP said over the course of the year when moved upon by the Spirit, and combined them into a single volume. I’d imagine we’d have words that rival the inspiration of some of the more personal revelations in D & C. In that sense, revelation is now more local in nature.
More than one prophet since Joseph has more or less stated that there is no revelation they’ve received that we can’t also receive for ourselves, even though our stewardship with regards to it may be different, making us all prophets. We shouldn’t need to ask Church leaders about everything, nor should they need to offer clarification for everything either. We can find out on our own. Admittedly, I’m content to put a lot of things on a shelf for now, but that’s due more to laziness than anything else. I don’t think any member has to be satisfied with that, but can prayerfully seek out answers on their own. The answer might not always be what we expect, but coming from the Lord, I don’t think it can be anything other than satisfying (even if that answer means some early leaders made some bad decisions now and then). Early members seemed to struggle with this idea even more than we do now, so it makes sense Joseph would have to fill in the gaps. Today, I think revelation and inspiration for the Church as a whole is probably more or less limited to how the Church adapts to the world, and I think even there the Brethren have a lot of autonomy.
It seems likely that Joseph Smith’s nature was to almost always have an answer, even if he had to make one up, in order to appear to be prophetic. In modern times our prophets seem to be more cautious about declaring revelations. One possible reason for this may be that they’ve been affected by the awkward task of rationalizing the missteps of their predecessors. But even with the insights they’ve gained from doing this, they’re still seem prone to implementing “doctrines and policies” which ultimately prove to be mistakes. In my 60 years of mostly active membership, here are a few prophetic directives that, in my opinion, have turn out to be uninspired: the November 2015 POX; teaching that gender is binary and that same sex attraction is a choice; putting same sex attracted members through the cruelty of conversion therapy and then counseling them to enter into heterosexual marriages; banning birth control and counseling members not to restrict the size of their families; Bishop’s youth interviews to discuss, among others things, masturbation; speaking of masturbation, President Kimball’s statement that it can cause homosexuality was wrong; Word of Wisdom tweaks which go against science while ignoring other warnings (e.g eating meat sparingly); top leaders buying fake LDS historical documents from Mark Hofmann, which brings into question power of discernment; President Oaks’ statement that the Church doesn’t give apologies is unfortunate; refusing to give women equal standing and authority in the Church (my five daughters are intelligent, educated, and talented with strong leadership skills. Two of them have already left the Church and I expect 1-2 more will eventually leave, largely because they can’t acquiesce to their place in the culture). Are we really led by prophets? I used to say “yes” quickly and with conviction but I’ve got more life experience now and my confidence isn’t what it used to be.
I think it was Dan Vogel who, remarking on Joseph Smith’s character and contrasting his adventurousness from his uniformly more cautious successors, observed that Joseph had no boundaries. That seems right. Nobody in Joseph’s wake can compete, but it ought to be a question whether we really want them to.
Could we come to a modern day diagnosis after psycho-analysis as to what Joseph had. The DSM would be able to come up with a few disorders, I am sure.
Or was he only suffering from a strange sense of humor?
In addition to JR’s citation, there’s also facsimile 2 in the Book of Abraham. Most of it is interpreted as “will be given in the Lord’s due time”. So there’s two examples. Given the difficulty of proving a negative, I’m sure that if someone who actually knew the subject matter could find more examples.
Adding this to the long and ever-growing list of posts by Bishop Bill that came straight out of his own imagination without making even an attempt to verify if it was true.
Current leaderships’ revelatory impulses are likely tempered by the fact that it is much easier to prove a statement false in 2019 than 1839. Probably a good thing.
What possible good can it do to have belong to an organization with leaders who proclaim they are prophets if they don’t have answers to your most pressing questions. You might as well stay home ,drink beer and watch the telly. At least you may learn something.Tthe difference between men ( Joseph ) who have publicly claimed to have stared into heaven ad entertained angels and those make make no such claim ( his successors ) is palpable