[Key Excerpts] On the multiple First Vision accounts: "The existence of several accounts of the First Vision has been used to discredit Joseph's story. The differences among them have been taken as evidence of fabrication. That argument, however, is not as strong as it first appears. Differences are to be expected when a person recounts an experience at various times in life to different audiences for different purposes. The accounts converge on the fundamental claims — a divine manifestation, a message about the churches, and a calling." On the translation process: "Joseph did not pretend to look through the plates and read off the translation word by word. By most accounts, he looked into a seer stone placed in a hat to exclude the light. In this posture, words appeared to him, which he dictated to his scribe. The plates lay nearby, sometimes covered, sometimes on a table, but not used directly in the translation." On polygamy: "Plural marriage may have been the most controversial of all Joseph Smith's enterprises, and the one most likely to raise questions about his character. Beginning sometime in the mid-1830s and certainly by 1841, Joseph secretly married additional wives... Fanny Alger was probably the first plural wife, sometime before 1836." On the nature of his project: "Rather than seeing Joseph as the originator of a fraud, it is more useful to understand him as a religious genius who spoke and acted within the framework of assumptions shared by his contemporaries, while at the same time pushing beyond them in startling ways."