SOURCE: An introduction to Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, University of Illinois Press, 1984, pp. 3-8.

In the excerpt below, Bushman describes the religious milieu from which Joseph Smith emerged, arguing that Smith can be "best understood as a person who outgrew his culture. "

Mormonism, it must be remembered, began with one family, the family of Joseph Smith, Sr., and Lucy Mack Smith of Vermont and New York. Joseph Smith, Jr., the fourth child among nine, became the Prophet and First Elder of the Church of Christ when it was organized on April 6, 1830, but three of the six original organizers were Smiths, just as previously three of the eight witnesses to the golden plates were family members.

Young Joseph Smith's culture was predominantly family culture. So far as the record shows, he had little schooling until he was past twenty. The necessity of work on the family...