In the Book of Mormon, the Lord declared that "out of weakness," Joseph Smith "shall be made strong" (2 Nephi 3:13). Richardson, Richardson and Bentley note that Joseph Quincy, mayor of Boston, said of Joseph: "Born in the lowest ranks of poverty, without book learning and with the homeliest of all human names, he made himself at the age of thirty-nine a power upon earth."
Dr. Harold Bloom, a Jewish religious scholar, and distinguished professor at both New York and Yale Universities, extols Joseph Smith as "an authentic religious genius, unique in our . . . history," and praises "the sureness of his instincts, his uncanny knowing precisely what [was] needful for the inauguration of a new faith." Joseph Smith and Mormonism, he further expounds, have contributed tot he world "a more human God and a more divine man. . . . I also do not . . . doubt that Joseph Smith was an authentic prophet. Where in all of American history can we find his match? . . . Nothing else in all of American history strikes me as . . . . equal to the early Mormons, to Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Parley and Orson Pratt, and the men and women who were their followers and friends." [Allen H. Richardson, David E. Richardson and Anthony E. Bentley, 1000 Evidences for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Part Two-A Voice from the Dust: 500 Evidences in Support of the Book of Mormon, pp. 95-96]