Did Joseph Believe the Moon was Inhabited?

No original sources verifying this have been found of which I am aware. There however is an 1881 jounal entry, published in 1892 by Oliver B Huntington who claimed Joseph Smith said there were moonmen. Oliver Huntington would have been about 10 or 11 years old at that time if he had heard it from Joseph Smith directly. Indications are that Oliver Huntington heard this claim secondhand at best.


Reverend J.R. Dummelow described the authors of the Bible and I believe it to be the same with Joseph Smith:

Tough purified and ennobled by the influence of His Holy Spirit, these men each had his own peculiarities of manner and dispostion - each with his own education or want of education - each with his won way of looking at things - each influenced differently from one another by the different experiences and disciplines of his life. Their inspiration did not involve a suspension of natural faculties; it did not even make them free from eathly passion; it did not make them into machines - it left them men.

Therefore we find their knowledge sometimes no higher than that of their contemporaries. [1]

Dummelow's description of the authors of Genesis is equally applicable:

His scientific knowledge may be bounded by the horizon of the age in which he lived, but the religious truths he teaches are irrefutable and eternal. [2]

Dummelow, who is not LDS is considered one of the foremost commentators on the Bible. Biblical prophets sometimes made errors but that does not mean they were not men of God.

Van Hale answered the detractors criticism in his pamphlet "How Could a Prophet Believe in Moonmen? One excerpt:

Did Joseph Smith believe in an inhabited moon? From the historical evidence now available the answer must be: Not Proven. But, all things considered, the possibility or probability, that he did cannot reasonably be denied For all others of that era the question seems quite insignificant, especially given contemporary beliefs. But in the case of Joseph Smith, he claimed to be a prophet. Some extremists contend that his claim demands that his knowledge in every area be superior to that of others in his era. If he believed any false notion of his day, so these critics say his credibility must be doubted. Others, not so demanding of infallible insight in a prophet, would be more comfortable with a description of God's revelation which allowed for the human and the divine.

The conclusion is that there is no direct proof that Joseph Smith said or believed that Moonmen inhabited the Moon but if he did so what. A prophet is only a prophet when acting as such. This is supported by Dummelow a highly respected traditional Christian commentator concerning the Bible.

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Footnotes:
[1] J.R. Dummerlow, One Volume Bible Commentary, pg. cxxxv
[2] J.R. Dummerlow, One Volume Bible Commentary, pg. xxx