Did John Milton's seventeenth-century epic poem Paradise Lost play a role in the early development of Mormon theology?
Milton’s heretical speculative theology left an indelible imprint on the conceptual and imaginative structures of early Mormon doctrines of Creation, the Fall, and redemption. Past scholars have noted parallels between Paradise Lost and the visionary writings of Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants. But Yale University professor of English John Rogers believes some of the most exciting Miltonic contributions to Mormon speculative theology emerged in the years just after Smith’s death in the work of Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt.