Perhaps a true-to-life biography of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon Church, can never be written. Smith’s claims to accessing the divine were too outlandish, his embrace of polygamy too ...

Joseph Smith 1805-1844 Born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, to Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith, Joseph Smith Jr. grew up on a series of tenant farms in Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York.

(RNS) — ‘I think the evidence for Joseph’s polygamous sealings is pretty overwhelming,’ says historian John Turner, who has penned a new biography of Joseph Smith.

(RNS) — ‘I think the evidence for Joseph’s polygamous sealings is pretty overwhelming,’ says historian John Turner, who has penned a new biography of Joseph Smith.