Introduction to Revelations and Translations: Volume 1
Introduction
to the Manuscript Revelation Books
Joseph Smith understood how important his revelations were to the work in which
he was engaged. He marveled at them, defended them, and ensured that many were
recorded, copied, edited, and published. And he and his followers acted on them,
often at great cost. When the revelations called for a new gathering place despite
inadequate resources, they responded. When the revelations commanded a small
community with little means to construct an impressive House of the Lord, they complied.
Joseph Smith’s revelations restored, organized, and built The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints and oriented thousands who converted to it in his lifetime
and millions since.
The earliest years of Mormon record keeping (1828–1831) consisted almost exclusively
of recording revelatory texts. During that period Joseph Smith translated and
published the 584-page Book of Mormon, began work on a revision of the Bible,
and recorded many revelations. He dictated most of his written revelations between
1828 and 1834, and in summer 1830 he and began to arrange and copy
them. Joseph Smith and his associates continued this effort for the next several years,
ultimately compiling the revelations, along with a few additional documents, in the
two manuscript books that are featured in this volume of the Revelations and
Translations series. In The Joseph Smith Papers, these manuscript books are given the editorial
titles Revelation Book 1 and Revelation Book 2, consistent with the widespread
documentary editing practice of referring to documents by generic titles.
Revelation Book 1, the spine of which is labeled “Book of Commandments and
Revelations,” was procured sometime during the first year after the church was
founded in April 1830. The manuscript book, which was initially used to preserve revelation
texts, was taken from to in November 1831 for use in publishing
the revelations. Church leaders in Missouri continued to update the volume when they
received copies of revelations sent by mail or in person from Ohio. Containing copies
of more than one hundred revelations, Revelation Book 1 was the source text for multiple
revelations published in the church’s first newspaper, The Evening and the Morning Star, in 1832 and 1833 and in the canonical compilation called the Book of
Commandments (1833). After being returned to Ohio by May 1835, it also served as a
supplemental source text for an expanded collection of revelations known as the
Doctrine and Covenants, first published in 1835. Revelation Book 2, the cover of which
is labeled “Book of Revelations” and which has often been referred to as the Kirtland
Revelation Book, was obtained for use in Ohio shortly after Revelation Book 1 was
taken from Ohio to Missouri. It too was used for preserving and later publishing revelation
texts. Containing about fifty copied revelations, many of which were also copied
into Revelation Book 1 in Missouri, this manuscript book was an important source
text for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.
This volume presents Revelation Books 1 and 2 in their entirety. Revelations and
other documents copied into them are presented as they appear in each book, and the
books are published as a complete record with textual annotation only. In addition to
contemporaneous emendations, later redactions made to the revelations are represented,
allowing readers to analyze the process of their preparation for publication as
well as their composition. In contrast, the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers
will present each Joseph Smith revelation separately, placed in chronological order with
other documents of various genres (correspondence, sermons, articles in periodicals,
and so forth). It will present as precisely as possible the text as originally dictated and
recorded, ignoring later redactions. That series will include the earliest and best extant
version of each revelation, providing contextual annotation and a historical introduction
for each. Volumes in the Documents series will also contain supplementary resources to
aid in understanding the texts, including a detailed chronology, maps, a biographical
directory, and an index. Users of the present volume should consult the Documents series
for information about the setting and signifi cance of individual revelations.
In most cases, the two manuscript books featured in this volume contain the earliest
extant revelation texts. They also include texts for which there is no other known
version, such as a revelation on securing a copyright for the Book of Mormon in
. Most of the revelations in these two books were published as Latter-day Saint
scripture during Smith’s lifetime; others were later canonized by vote of the general
membership of the church. Nine of the revelations in these two books have not been
canonized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
By late 1831, Joseph Smith was planning to publish the revelations. A dramatic expansion
of print culture in meant that a wide variety of religious and political
groups were publishing newspapers and books, reaching wider audiences than ever
before. Latter-day Saint missionaries valued the revelations and tried to use them in
their ministry, but they had to rely on handwritten copies that they could obtain only
at church headquarters or from other missionaries who had copies. As the number of
converts increased, so did the need to publish the revelations. Already a revelation had
assigned the experienced editor to be a printer for the church.
Joseph Smith convened a conference on 1 November 1831 in , Ohio, to plan
publication of the revelations in book form. At this conference, asked
“how many copies of the Book of commandments it was the will of the Lord should be published in the first edition of that work.” The conference determined to publish ten
thousand copies and later voted that the revelations should “be prized by this
Conference to be worth to the Church the riches of the whole Earth.”
The value placed on the revelations, and especially the plan to publish them, would
enlarge a divide between Latter-day Saints and the mainstream Christian world for
which the Bible was the complete and final word of God. The Book of Mormon, sometimes
derided as “the Mormon Bible” because believers claimed it to be a companion
volume of ancient scripture comparable to the Holy Bible, first opened the fissure.
Reducing modern declarations of God to written words and then publishing them as
“what may be termed a continuation of the Scriptures” must have seemed a presumptuous
enterprise and further highlighted the Latter-day Saints’ rejection of the notion
of a closed canon and their belief that God could speak to man in any age. While
many of their Christian contemporaries believed that divine guidance was still possible,
most believed that the Bible was the terminal formulation of scripture.
Preparing the revelation texts for publication—indeed the very act of capturing
revelations in writing—also raised important issues for believers about the relationship
between divine communication and human language. At the November 1831 conference,
Joseph Smith dictated a revelation, designated as a preface to the anticipated
book, that declared, “I am God & have spoken it[.] these commandments are of me &
were given unto my Servents in their weakness after the manner of their Language that
they might come to understanding.” Presented to the elders attending the conference,
this revelation provided context for discussion of issues related to the authenticity and
language of the revelations.
The discussion apparently arose in response to Joseph Smith’s solicitation of an
endorsement for the proposed publication. Smith stated, “The Lord [has] bestowed a
great blessing upon us in giving commandments and revelations.” He asked the men
present “what testimony they were willing to attach to these commandments which
should shortly be sent to the world.” After “a number of the brethren arose and said
that they were willing to testify to the world that they knew that they were of the
Lord,” Smith oversaw the composition of a statement confirming that testimony. It
stated that they had received divine inspiration assuring them that the revelations intended
for publication were “given by inspiration of God & are profitable for all men
& are verily true.” Smith’s history notes that “some conversation was had concerning
Revelation and language.” By the following morning, it was apparent that some of
the elders lacked the divine confirmation that the written testimony required them to
affirm. Seeking a solution to the impasse, Joseph Smith dictated an additional revelation.
It noted the elders’ disappointment and chided them for wishing to improve
upon Smith’s imperfect language: “Your eyes have been upon my Servent Joseph & his language you have known & his imperfections you have known & you have sought in
your hearts knowlege that you might express beyond his language.”
This revelation also provided a novel way for them to test the divine origin of the
revelations that were about to be published. It invited the wisest man present to produce
a text on par with the “least” of the manuscript revelations. Failure to produce an
equivalent text would be evidence that Joseph Smith’s revelations were from God. The
men who were present would then be responsible to testify of them: “if you cannot
make one like unto it ye are under condemnation if ye do not bear [record] that it is
true for ye know that there is no unrighteousness in it & that which is righteous
cometh down from above.” Joseph Smith’s later history tells that , who the preceding week had served as scribe as Smith dictated, “endeavored
to write a commandment like unto one of the least of the Lord’s, but failed.”
According to the history, the elders who observed the proceedings responded with
renewed faith “in the truth of the commandments and revelations which the Lord had
given to the Church through my instrumentality; and . . . signified a willingness to
bear testimony of their truth to all the world.”
and four others signed the statement, and copied both the
text and their names into Revelation Book 1, where thirteen additional men later signed
it in support. The men present at the conference “arose in turn and bore witness to
the truth of the Book of Commandments. After which br. Joseph Smith jr arose &
expressed his feelings & gratitude.”
Joseph Smith undoubtedly appreciated this demonstration of faith in his revelations.
He stood in awe of the charge God had given him, calling it “an awful responsibility to
write in the name of the Lord.” The revelation introducing the soon-to-be-published
Book of Commandments affirmed that God “called upon [his] Servent Joseph & spake
unto him from heaven & gave him commandment,” and another revelation declared,
“This generation shall have my word through you.” By testifying to the divine origin
of the revelations and signing a formal statement of support, believers helped shoulder
this “awful responsibility.”
Preparing the revelation texts for publication was no simple matter. Joseph Smith
dictated the words of these texts to a scribe, who committed them to paper. A scribe
then copied them into the manuscript books, portions of which were eventually typeset
and published as scripture. Sometimes the process was more complicated. For example,
Joseph Smith dictated a revelation on 6 December 1832 as wrote it. then made a copy of the text, copied that copy,
and then recorded Hyde’s copy into Revelation Book 1, from which it
was edited for publication. It is unknown how many of the revelations in Revelation
Books 1 and 2 made such an arduous textual journey, but it appears that few, if any, of
the revelations is an original in pristine form. Changes both intentional and inadvertent
were made throughout the process.
Joseph Smith and his followers considered his revelations to be true in the sense that
they communicated the mind and will of God, not infallible in an idealized sense of
literary flawlessness. “The revelations were not God’s diction, dialect, or native language,”
historian Richard Bushman has written. “They were couched in language suitable
to Joseph’s time.” Smith and others appointed by revelation (including , , , and ) edited the revelations
based on the same assumption that informed their original receipt: namely, that
although Smith represented the voice of God condescending to speak to him, he was
limited by a “crooked broken scattered and imperfect language.” The November 1831
conference resolved that he should “correct those errors or mistakes which he may discover
by the holy Spirit.”
Although church leaders originally intended to print ten thousand copies of the
Book of Commandments, limited resources forced a more modest plan of three thousand.
But even that plan was upset, and only a few dozen incomplete copies of the
Book of Commandments were actually produced. In July 1833, before had finished the project, antagonistic citizens of , Missouri,
demanded that he cease printing what they called “pretended revelations from
Heaven” and then destroyed the printing office and Phelps’s home to ensure that printing
stopped. Most of the printed revelations were destroyed, but some uncut pages
were preserved and later folded and bound. The manuscript book now known as
Revelation Book 1, the primary source for the Book of Commandments, escaped the
violence and was returned to by May 1835. There, in September 1834, the high
council had appointed and a general church council had approved a committee composed
of Joseph Smith, , , and to
prepare the revelations for publication in a new compilation. This endeavor resulted
in the Doctrine and Covenants, which was first published in 1835. Both Revelation
Books 1 and 2 were used as sources for the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.
Joseph Smith was absent on business in August 1835 when a general church
assembly convened to approve the new collection of revelations as authoritative for the
church. In the conference held up an unbound copy of the Doctrine
and Covenants and proceeded to take a vote of those present, beginning with the
church leaders. said that he had carefully examined the book of
revelations and that it was “well arranged and calculated to govern the church in righteousness,
[and] if followed would bring the members to see eye to eye.” He further
stated that he knew the revelations were true, “having received witness from Heaven &
not from men.” followed with a similar expression of certainty, testifying
“that he was present when some of the revelations contained therein were given,
and was satisfied they come from God.”
Expressions from representatives of each group of church officers present, from the
presidency through the deacons, were followed by the votes of each group in support
of the book. , representing the high council of , said “he had
examined as many of the revelations contained in the book as were printed in Zion, &
as firmly believes them as he does the Book of Mormon or the Bible.” read a statement in behalf of the recently called Twelve Apostles, absent in the
East on their first quorum assignment. Bishop testified that he
knew the revelations “were true, for God had testified to him by his holy Spirit, for
many of them were given under his roof & in his presence through President Joseph
Smith Junr.” Thus continued the process by which Joseph Smith’s followers formally
consented to his revelations, giving them canonical status. The conference culminated
with “all the members present, both male & female,” giving “a decided voice in
favor of it.”
Others besides Joseph Smith arose in the early American republic claiming heavenly
visions, but his revelations were a class apart. He produced distinctive revelatory
documents that explore, in the words of one historian, “realms of doctrine unimagined
in traditional Christian theology.” Others wrote in terms that were comparatively
more modest, even ambiguous. As one scholar has noted, very few religious leaders
“founded faiths based on new dispensations and discoveries [like] Joseph Smith’s creation
of Mormonism.” By committing his revelations to writing and then seeing them
published and canonized, Smith provided his followers with new scripture based on
biblical precedents. The manuscript books featured in this volume affirm his commitment
to create and preserve sacred texts and constitute a fundamental part of his effort
to document his dealings with God.