Joseph Smith

Last Wednesday I taught an institute class on Joseph Smith. A couple of items of interest:

Brigham Young's Testimony of Joseph Smith:

"When I first heard him preach, he brought heaven and earth together; all the priests of the day could not tell me anything correct about heaven, hell, God, angels or devils; they were as blind as Egyptian darkness. When I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven, figuratively speaking, and brought it down to earth; and he took the earth, brought it up, and opened up, in plainness and simplicity, the things of God; and that is the beauty of his mission."

Widtsoe, John A., Discourses of Brigham Young p. 458


Another interesting tidbit:

In a book, The Messianic Idea In Israel Dr. Klausner from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem writes one entire chapter (chapter 90) about a latter-day prophet, a descendant of Joseph of old. The title of the chapter is "Messiah ben Joseph and the battle of Gog and Magog." In this chapter he is trying to make sense of the traditions passed down from the Jews about this latter day son of Joseph who would be called "Taeb," meaning the restorer,

"...sources regarded primarily as a prophet who will restore everywhere the true law to its former validity and convert all peoples...but it is most interesting that his existence and his violent death are considered as matters known to all." (The Messianic Idea In Israel by Joseph Klausner.)