User:Octowalrus/JSaS

Joseph Smith as Scientist: A Contribution to Mormon Philosophy is a Mormon apologetic book written by John A. Widtsoe, a Latter-day Saint agricultural scientist and scholar. Although it was first published as a stand-alone book in 1908, large portions of the text of Joseph Smith as Scientist were originally published as an eponymous series of articles in the Improvement Era, an official magazine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Joseph Smith as Scientist: A Contribution to Mormon Philosophy

Title page of Joseph Smith as Scientist, first edition (1908)
Author	John A. Widtsoe
Language	English
Published	1908 (The General Board, Young Men's Mutual Improvement Associations)
Publication place	United States of America
Pages	173
OCLC	4674772
LC Class	BX8695.S6 W5
Text	Joseph Smith as Scientist: A Contribution to Mormon Philosophy at Project Gutenberg

Freely Available Electronic Editions of the Text

• Joseph Smith as Scientist EPUB and Kindle editions
• Joseph Smith as Scientist Scanned Ebook from the Internet Archive
• Joseph Smith as Scientist Scanned Ebook from Google Books
• Joseph Smith as Scientist E-Text from Project Gutenberg

Possibly Useful Sources for this Article

• Alexander, Thomas G. (July–August 1980), "The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine: From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology" (PDF), Sunstone, 5 (4): 24–33 (Relationship with Herbert Spencer's ideas, etc.)

• (Similar argument [Word of Wisdom vindicated by later scientific research])

• Hilton, Lynn M. (2005). The Kolob Theorem (PDF). CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1475172133. (Similar subject matter, although not by a trained scientist [doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny]). Although the topic is mostly Hilton's unconventional, literalistic reading of scripture and modern science, he does assert in several places that the revelations of Joseph Smith agree with and anticipate either current science (p. 17,"The Prophet Joseph Smith had a clear understanding of God’s Universe. He described it in

astonishing detail during the 1840s AD. We accept his ideas as coming from a divine source and are verily true. Since the time of Joseph Smith, scientists have found many similar things in the heavens.") or yet-to-be-discovered revisions of it (p. 33, "In the great revelation on astronomy given to Abraham and again to Joseph Smith, we are informed that light radiates out from Kolob to give power to the sun, moon, and earth . . . Astronomers have yet to confirm that our sun, for example, is renewed or refueled by such outpourings from the heavenly center. . . . Latter-day Saints suspect that the sun (indeed, all the suns) is generously replenished by radiations from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-van-rash, and in due time, we may come to understand this process.")

• Ingebretsen, Richard J. (1999). Joseph Smith and Modern Astronomy. Springville, Utah: Bonneville Books. ISBN 1555174426. (Similar topic from a guy who has an MS in Physics and a PhD in Physics Education, in addition to an MD. In addition to medical stuff, he is a lecturer at the University of Utah in Physics. He and another author [of the introduction] make very bold claims about the scientific accuracy of Joseph Smith's cosmology, including:
  • "revealed through prophets long before they were accepted or even imagined by the scientific community" (p. vi)
  • "the revelations God gave to the prophets . . . illustrate these scientific principles with amazing accuracy" (p. vii)
  • "it has taken modern scientists thousands of years to catch up with the knowledge given to the prophets long ago" (p. vii)
  • "It took science over 3,500 years and the superb intellect of Einstein to re-discover what Abraham knew" (p. 1)

References

Category:1908 books Category:The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints texts Category:1908 in religion Category:Works by John A. Widtsoe