Bushman Fireside

[Jeff Lebowski]

Richard L. Bushman has an older home in central Provo where he spends three months each summer. He gave a fireside tonight in his ward and a friend invited me to attend. Here is a summary of a few points that I found interesting.

Disclaimer: These are my recollections of what he said and may be prone to error.

- He started out by discussing the relationship of JS to Jesus Christ and the atonement. He said that JS suffered from anxiety and depression. He said it was significant that many of the revelations start off with "Thy sins are forgiven thee." There were some interesting tangents to this, but I will probably mess up the details.

- He discussed the various accounts of the first vision. He said that the discrepencies are significant and that they bother a lot of people but they don't bother him. He compared them to the four versions of the gospels. But a bigger issue is the intended audience. The early versions focus more on forgiveness of sin (see item 1) and were written at a time when JS commonly witheld many details of visions. The common version was written as part of a history of the church and thus has an emphasis on the "you are called to start a new church" angle.

- He said that JS tended to immediately publish revelations given to his mind by the spirit, but generally held back on visions or details of visions. Even the visit from Christ in the Kirtland temple was not discussed for many years, even though he immediately recorded the experience via a scribe.

- He said that he strongly approves of the rehabilitation of Emma in the church (sorry, Adam). He said that she had a unique position to watch JS rise from a young nobody all the way up to a martyred prophet. He finds it significant that she never waivered on her testimony. He said that he believes she was "burned out" after JS died and was also under financial duress. She did not trust BY. All of these factors came to play in her decision not to go west with the church. Interestingly, he recommended the recent Emma movie.

- Discussed how polygamy was a major trial for Emma and she accepted it for a few weeks and then changed her mind. She just couldn't buy into it. Also commented that JS-style polygamy differed from BY-style polygamy in that it was more focused on sealings that on setting up permanent domestic relationships. He said that about six people were told that they were children (non-Emma) of JS. All were informed after 1890 or so and details are sketchy. There is a DNA project underway to identify non-Emma descendants. Thus far they have ruled out any male descendants and are checking on the possibility of female descendants.

- Said that JS had a hot temper and wore his heart on his sleeve, but was quick to forgive.

- Bushman went to grad school at Harvard and he said that it seemed that everyone else in his student ward was in Harvard Business School so he felt insecure about his choice to pursue history. He used to wander the campus at night agonizing over his career and wondering if he was making the right decision. At one point he eased his anxiety by deciding that he would someday use his education to right a good bio of JS. He later felt that it wouldn't be necessary but friends and colleagues finally influenced him to finally give it a shot.

Anyway, that's all I recall at the moment. Coincidentally, I learned the Bushman and I are related (probably 3rd or 4th cousins). He signed my copy of RSR.

All in all, it was a great fireside. At the end, Bushman bore a powerful testimony. Not emotional, but strong, sincere, and unequivocal. I came away enlightened, touched, and impressed.

(How would you like to have this guy in your gospel doctrine and priesthood lessons? Poor guy probably gets asked to comment on everything.)