"Soun's like bullshit, son. I'm gonna go excite the public mind agains' ya!"
Why, oh why did Joseph not say anything about being persecuted until many years after his First Vision? Why, oh why did no one in Joseph Smith's family (or anyone else, for that matter) talk about Joseph suffering persecution at the hand of the community?
It looks to me like Joseph, in an effort to turn himself into a new Paul, concocted a narrative of persecution for his followers to latch onto. A little pathos goes a long way. (Maybe he was persecuted but it wasn't quite as bad as he later made it out to be.)
But why worry about the early persecution at all? How does persecution logically indicate you're right about anything? Answer: because Satan.
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