Richard Lyman Bushman

Author of Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, the landmark biography Kyle read in 2020 and rated 5/5. In Kyle’s notes, Bushman is characterized as “the biographer; a believing historian who engages the messiness of Church history” — a believing Latter-day Saint scholar who nonetheless evaluates the prophet and the institution he built as fallible humans in fallen systems, rather than against a perfect ideal. That posture is precisely what makes the book valuable to Kyle: it asks hard questions about Church history without surrendering the underlying claim.

Bushman’s authorial choices surface in the notes as historiographical contrasts — for example, his treatment of Joseph Smith’s expansive Bible revision is set against Thomas Jefferson’s pared-down New Testament. Kyle pairs the book with Leonard Arrington and the Writing of Mormon History as a historiographical companion, framing Bushman’s candid scholarship as part of how serious, faith-engaged Mormon history became possible.

Context: Richard Lyman Bushman (b. 1931) is an American historian, emeritus Gouverneur Morris Professor of History at Columbia University, and a practicing Latter-day Saint. Rough Stone Rolling (2005) is widely regarded as the definitive modern biography of Joseph Smith.

Where this appears

• Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling — the biographer; a believing historian who engages Church history’s messiness, contrasted with Thomas Jefferson on scripture revision.