Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling

Why this matters here

Bushman’s biography reconstructs Joseph Smith’s prophetic standing, community conflict, and succession pressures from available documentary trails. When Interpretation No Longer Matters uses that historiography for a narrower claim: once a revelatory premise is received, evaluation proceeds inside it rather than from neighboring common sense. Bushman supplies the historical texture of visionary authority; the book asks what interpretation can still do after the premise has already closed the door.