The Ancient Devil & Joseph Smith w/ John Larsen | Ep. 1839

Joseph Smith's Devil Problem: How a Restoration Became a Remix of Protestant Theology

Joseph Smith's doctrine of Satan reveals a fundamental contradiction at the heart of the LDS Church's founding narrative. Rather than restoring ancient religious understanding, Smith constructed his theology of evil by mining medieval Christian mistranslations and apocalyptic fever dreams, according to a new three-part analysis on the Mormon Stories Podcast featuring religious researcher John Larsen. The result is a Mormon conception of the devil that borrows more from 16th-century Protestant Christianity than from the Hebrew scriptures Smith claimed to be restoring.

This matters because it exposes a pattern that extends far beyond cosmology: if Joseph Smith's most foundational theological claims rest on misread ancient texts and creative reinterpretation rather than authentic restoration, what does that mean for the authority claims the church has built upon him?

The Devil Barely Exists in the Old Testament

Start with the historical record. Satan, as commonly understood in modern Christianity and Mormonism, does not appear in the Hebrew scriptures. This is not a matter of theological interpretation; it is a documented fact of biblical scholarship.

When we examine the oldest Hebrew texts, the word Satan functions as a common noun meaning "adversary" rather than a proper name for a cosmic antagonist. In the Book of Job, "the satan" appears as a member of God's heavenly court, a figure tasked with testing human faith. He is not evil incarnate. He is not rebellious. He simply opposes and tests.