Abstract

On 7 April 1844, less than three months before his assassination, Joseph Smith spoke to thousands of fellow Mormons gathered in Nauvoo, Illinois, for a general conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Responding to the accidental death of city constable King Follett, Joseph addressed the subjects of resurrection and deification, in what many Mormons esteem as his culminating theological statement and literary critic Harold Bloom has assessed as “one of the truly remarkable sermons ever preached in America”. As a tribute to and in reverence of Joseph’s words, I share this interpretive variation.