Biblical Christianity 101, a study of the book of Romans

[TheRocketSurgeon]

Bullshit. The Mormons say he was persecuted and died for the faith. It was Paul who avoided execution. That's why nowhere in the Bible does it say he died for the faith.

Histroy says something different.

History says he was arrested for having 8 wives when state law only allowed you to have one.

Then he was shot and killed in prison with his brother by an angry mob. what incited the mob? a new paper artical that said smith was sleeping around with the wrong men wives and father several children with them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Joseph_Smith

So religious persecution? Yes if polygamy and adultry are apart of your 'faith.' other wise no, no he was not persecuted for his beliefs. he always fled persectuation

So when Paul (you say, since we have no actual evidence that he was executed; I've been going along with your presumption because there was no point in debating that element, until now) was eventually captured and killed, after using his status as a Roman to get out of an earlier "kangaroo court", as you put it, he wasn't "running"?

It looks to me like the life of Joseph Smith, who could miraculously talk to angels and translate ancient Egyptian (which no one, then, could read), parallels nicely with that of Paul, even when the people got tired of that expanding cult and decided to do something about it:

The violent deaths of the Prophet Joseph Smith at the age of thirty-eight and his brother Hyrum Smith (age forty-four), Associate President and patriarch of the Church, dramatically ended the founding period of the LDS Church. On June 27, 1844, they were mobbed and shot while confined at Carthage Jail in Hancock County, in western Illinois. Climaxing more than two decades of persecution across several states, this event gave them an enduring place as martyrs in the hearts of Latter-day Saints.

These tensions coalesced around Joseph Smith. In addition to being prophet and President of the Church, he also served as mayor, commander of the Nauvoo Legion state militia, justice of the peace, and university chancellor. Non-Mormon fears of this concentration of powers were intensified by the Church's belief in the theocratic union of spiritual, economic, and political matters under the priesthood. This and other "unorthodox" doctrines, such as continuing revelation, temple ordinances for the living and the dead, new scripture, and plural marriage, further intensified political and economic rivalries.

Illinois anti-Mormons, perhaps assisted by old enemies from Missouri, joined with a handful of determined Mormon defectors within Nauvoo. Several had held high Church positions and, when excommunicated, fueled efforts to destroy Joseph Smith and the Church. [...]

However, threats of mob violence increased. In Warsaw and Carthage, newspapers called for extermination of the Mormons. On June 18, Joseph Smith mobilized his troops to protect Nauvoo. When Illinois governor Thomas Ford apparently sided with the opposition and ordered the Church leaders to stand trial again on the same charges, this time in Carthage, Joseph and Hyrum first considered appealing to U.S. President John Tyler, but then decided instead to cross the Mississippi and escape to the West. Pressured by family and friends who felt abandoned and who believed Joseph to be nearly invincible, he agreed to return and surrender; but he prophesied that he would be going "like a lamb to the slaughter" and would be "murdered in cold blood". Joseph urged Hyrum to save himself and succeed him as prophet, but Hyrum refused and accompanied his brother to Carthage.

(Bold emphasis my own; internal citations omitted.)

Source: http://www.pbs.org/americanprophet/martyrdom.html