The latest offering from the Brigham Young University Religious Education Symposium in Honor of Sidney B. Sperry is Joseph Smith as a Visionary: Heavenly Manifestations in the Latter Days. Joseph Smith, Jr. is known for experiencing several visions, such as the First Vision, the visits of the Angel Moroni, the Vision of the Three Degrees of Glory, and the 1836 vision of the celestial kingdom. These experiences both made him comparable to contemporaries and moved him to the margins of society as well. In addition, the visions he recorded had a major impact on his theology. The book is a series of papers exploring aspects of these visions, their impact, and reception.

Overall, the chapters of Joseph Smith as a Visionary represent an important contribution to academic literature about the Doctrine and Covenants and Joseph Smith’s experience as a visionary in the early United States. For example, Kyle Beshears offers a fascinating look into the composition of the 1832 history of the First Vision, pointing out that it “is often underestimated in terms of its sophistication” but, as his analysis of intertextuality with the Bible points out, it demonstrates a “sophisticated incorporation of biblical language, texts, and symbols into his text” (p. 80). Jeremy J. Chatelain shares insights into how Joseph Smith’s earliest visionary experiences were reported in the network of newspapers in the country, while Jared M. Halverson discussed the anti-visionary context of Joseph Smith’s time and place in a high-caliber manner, while Alonzo L. Gaskill and Seth G. Soha offered the perspective that the core design of the temple garments was given to Joseph Smith in a visionary experience.

From an academic perspective, however, the quality of chapters is uneven. For example, the chapters titled “The Restoration of Dreams as Revelation” or “Let the Hearts of All My People Rejoice” felt like papers that might be at home in a devotional setting, like an Institute of Religion or as a high-quality Liahona article. That fits in the context of BYU’s RSC and Deseret Book’s publication goals, so it is not unexpected, but it does mean that the book felt like it was being pulled in different directions in term of tone, purpose, and audience throughout.

One particular topic for contribution to literature about the Doctrine and Covenants was the closing three chapters, each of which focused on aspects of the 1836 vision of the celestial kingdom from which section 137 is drawn. Stephen O. Smoot focused on the history of the text, discussing the portions of the vision not canonized, and tracing the path of the most significant part of the vision towards canonization in the 1970s. Robert L. Millet focused on how the vision and the connected aspects of Joseph Smith’s theology addressed the problem of evil. Jubal John Lotze, on the other hand, focused on how the vision shifted understanding of the afterlife for Joseph Smith and Latter-day Saints more broadly, paving the way for family sealing rituals and baptism for the dead. There is, of course, some overlap between each of these three chapters, but they each offer some unique insights that made them worthwhile.

Overall, I’m a fan of Joseph Smith as a Visionary: Heavenly Manifestations in the Latter Days. I’m definitely planning on drawing from it in some of my upcoming writing projects and recommend it for those who have academic and devotional interests in Joseph Smith’s visionary experiences.