Joseph Smith founded a religion at twenty-four and was dead at thirty-eight, killed by a mob in an Illinois jail. In fourteen years he produced new scripture, established a city, built temples, ran for president, and introduced doctrines — plural marriage, baptism for the dead, the plurality of gods — that continue to define and complicate the movement. Latter-day Saints regard him as a prophet; other Christians generally do not; and the succession crisis after his death produced several churches, of which the Utah body became by far the largest.