"Joseph Smith Jr. was one among many American religious 'seekers' who felt emboldened by his knowledge of Bible stories, despite a lack of formal training or literary skills, to take sacred history into his own hands. One might see the Book of Mormon, then, as an ingenious exercise in making new meaning in a new landscape, in reshaping the world by placing oneself, and one's family and friends, in a world charged with sacred meaning and divine inspiration"