Infinite Goodness: Joseph Smith, Jonathan Edwards, and the Book of Mormon

This book is a fascinating new approach to the Book of Mormon that offers new insights into how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. Readers have always known the book contains language from the King James Bible, but what about all the non-biblical language? Where did Joseph Smith acquire his lexicon?\nIn his earliest known personal history (1832), Joseph Smith, Jr., said he had an "intimate acquaintance with those of different denominations." Later, when asked about the establishment of the Church, Joseph began with his "experience while in my juvenile years, say from 6 years old up to the time I receive the first visitation of Angels which was when I was about 14 years old." This book proposes that during these years of convalescence, Joseph spent his time reading Christian literature, particularly the works of Jonathan Edwards. In this way Joseph was prepared to translate the Book of Mormon.\nJonathan Edwards, the great Christian theologian, led an exemplary life. Preacher, minister, and missionary to the Indians of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Edwards left a voluminous body of work that included his anticipation of great prosperity of the Church in the latter days. In retrospect, from the perspective of Joseph Smith, Edwards set the stage for the Restoration as "God's forerunner."\nThis new understanding opens up the Book of Mormon by identifying the numerous allusions Joseph made to Edwards' works. The detailed analysis and examples in this book reveal how the Book of Mormon, which "is the possession of mankind," is also the fulfillment of centuries of Christian hopes and aspirations, the instrument God prepared to establish Zion in our day.