The Revelations
and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers reproduces
many of the earliest extant manuscripts of
Joseph
Smith’s written revelations and translations, together with official
editions of these documents published during his lifetime.
These publications include The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the
Hand of Mormon, upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi (first
edition, 1830); A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church
of Christ, Organized according to Law, on the 6th of April, 1830
(1833); and Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter
Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God (first
edition, 1835). In early Latter-day Saint usage, the terms
revelation and translation
acquired specialized meaning. In this series, revelation
generally refers to messages expressed in the first-person voice of Deity that
Joseph Smith dictated to his scribes. The term may occasionally be applied to
other texts Smith presented as being revealed or inspired. Translation refers to works such as the Book of Mormon that
Joseph Smith said were based on sacred, ancient texts and translated “by the
gift and power of God,” that is, by a revelatory or inspired process and not by
natural means. As used in this series, translation does
not refer to conventional translations, such as Smith’s exercises in the study
of Hebrew.
A
revelation to
Joseph
Smith dated 6 April 1830, the day he
organized the Church of Christ, describes him as “a seer & Translater &
Prop[h]et.” What did these titles mean to him
and his followers? His work in translating the Book of Mormon helped shape
their understanding. The Book of Mormon tells of a king who asks Ammon, an
emissary from another kingdom, if he can translate an ancient, indecipherable
record in the king’s possession. “I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man
that can translate,” Ammon replies, “for he hath wherewith that he can look,
and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God.”
Such power constitutes a “seer,” Ammon says, which he defines as “a revelator,
and a prophet also.” A seer by this definition possesses “great power given him
from God” that enables him to know of things past, present, and future and to
reveal what is otherwise unknowable. “Therefore,” the Book of Mormon states,
“he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings.”
For early
Latter-day Saints,
Joseph
Smith’s roles as seer, translator, and prophet constituted such a gift
from God. He and his followers considered his translation and the subsequent
publication of the Book of Mormon a great benefit to humanity and regarded him
as a servant of God who, like Moses, revealed God’s commandments. “The fact
is,” Smith declared, “that by the power of God I translated the book of Mormon
from hierogliphics; the knowledge of which was lost to the world. In which
wonderful event, I stood alone, an unlearned youth, to combat the worldly
wisdom and multiplied ignorance of eighteen centuries.” Such confidence in his calling characterized
Smith’s life.
Years before he
published the Book of Mormon, young
Joseph
Smith had his first experience with Deity. Stirred by preachers and
revivalists in upstate
, by 1820 he became seriously concerned for what he called
“the wellfare of my immortal Soul.” Having come of age in an evangelical
culture, he used the vocabulary of the revival preachers to describe how he
became “convicted” of his sins and longed for an assurance of salvation. He
turned to the Bible and found it reassuring but insufficient, and the
denominations he observed did not seem to him to be “built upon the Gospel of
Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament.”
During this
period of personal distress,
Joseph
Smith “cried unto the Lord for mercy.” According to his account, his
prayer was answered with a dramatic vision. “A pillar of light above the
brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me,” he
wrote. “I was filled with the spirit of god and the Lord opened the heavens
upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me.” Smith recounted that he
“could find none that would believe” in his experience, and he apparently grew
careful of how and to whom he recounted it. “Nevertheless,” he said, “I
pondered these things in my heart.” Though an
1830 statement apparently refers to the
vision, he waited a dozen years to
write specifically about this experience.
Despite the
intensely private nature of
Joseph
Smith’s 1820 vision, his spiritual
experiences gradually drew him into a public role. In September 1823, concerned about his standing before
God, he again sought guidance through prayer. This time, Smith later recounted,
an angel calling himself Moroni appeared to him with a message that foretold
his future roles as seer and translator. The angel spoke of a buried record
“written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this
continent and the source from whence they sprang.” The messenger said the
record contained “the fullness of the everlasting Gospel . . . as delivered by
the Saviour to the ancient inhabitants.” The angel also spoke of “two stones in
silver bows . . . deposited with the plates,” saying “the possession and use of
these stones was what constituted seers in ancient or former times.”
Joseph Smith later used the Old Testament term “Urim
and Thummim” to refer to such stones. In ancient Israel, certain stones were
associated with the priestly or prophetic office and were considered a means of
revelation. By the early nineteenth century, however,
Enlightenment rationalism had relegated such objects to the realm of
superstition and magic. Smith rejected that judgment and may have seen a link
between Old Testament revelatory practices and the folk religion of his
region.
Previous
experience had prepared
Joseph
Smith to understand and believe the angel’s words concerning the stones.
Even before learning of the inscribed gold plates, he gained experience with a
mysterious gift he had by which he could look into certain stones and,
according to his mother’s report, “discern things, that could not be seen by
the natural eye.”
Smith acknowledged that through this means he had occasionally sought buried
treasure and frequently searched for lost property.
With his 1827 reception of the plates, the ancient
seer stones (sometimes called interpreters), and a mandate from heaven, Joseph
Smith embarked on a new path as a translator of ancient records. He began translating the Book of Mormon
in early 1828, and the translation, as he
explained it, was made known to him through the stones or interpreters.Whether using the interpreters or
his own stone, he characterized as divine his power to look into seer stones
and translate.
In
July 1828,
Joseph
Smith recorded a revelation for the first known time. In its earliest
surviving manuscript form, the introduction to that revelation reads, “Given to
Joseph the Seer after he had lost certan writings [of the Book of Mormon] which
he had Translated by the gift & Power of God.” He had previously entrusted over a hundred
pages of the dictated manuscript to a supporter named
, who lost them. The loss devastated Smith, and he wept
inconsolably upon learning the news.
The revelation
that resulted included both reproof and comfort. The text begins in the voice
of a just God who rebukes
Joseph
Smith for boasting and repeatedly neglecting his counsel. The tone of the
revelation turns midway, however, with the words “but remember God is merciful
therefore repent of that which thou hast done & he will only cause thee to
be afflicted for a season.” Smith is assured that he is “still chosen &
will again be called to the work.” Still, he is admonished, “except Thou do
this thou shalt be delivered up & become as other men & have no more
gift.” One historian has said that this
revelation “gave the first inkling of how Joseph would speak in his prophetic
voice. The speaker stands above and outside Joseph, sharply separated
emotionally and intellectually. The rebuke of Joseph is as forthright as the
denunciation of
. There is no effort to conceal or rationalize, no sign of Joseph
justifying himself to prospective followers.”
Joseph
Smith dictated most of the Book of Mormon between
April and June 1829.When the manuscript was finished, he
contracted with printer
of
, New York,
to print and bind five thousand copies. The book went on sale in
March 1830. By that spring, dozens outside of
Joseph Smith’s family had accepted him as a divinely inspired revelator and
translator, and the number soon grew. Such a group of believers was essential
for his texts to function as scripture: “Texts without . . . an interactive
group are mere texts,” wrote historian Stephen Stein, “ancient texts perhaps,
or even modern texts, but not scripture.”
After the Book of Mormon was published and Smith organized a church, the number
of converts continued to grow, beginning with many of the women and men who
knew him best, who “accepted the voice in the revelations as the voice of God,
investing in the revelations the highest authority, even above Joseph Smith’s
counsel. In the revelations, they believed, God himself spoke, not a man.”
Witnesses
described how
Joseph
Smith captured the revealed words in written texts, giving them
permanence. “The scribe seats himself at a desk or table, with pen, ink and
paper,” recounted one scribe. “The subject of enquiry being understood, the
Prophet and Revelator enquires of God. He spiritually sees, hears and feels,
and then speaks as he is moved upon by the Holy Ghost, the ‘thus saith the
Lord,’ sentence after sentence, and waits for his amanuenses to write and then
read aloud each sentence.” As with the
1820 theophany, the revelations preserved in his
manuscripts are mostly dialogic. Smith posed questions to Deity, who answered
directly. Pressing questions frequently catalyzed revelation, and the divine
response contained specific answers. This form of revelation also pervades the
Book of Mormon, where “prayer frequently and dramatically evokes an answer that
is impossible to mistake as anything other than an individualized, dialogic
response.”
Many of
Joseph
Smith’s revelations share common threads. Pronounced themes in the first
revelations—such as apostasy, fulfillment of biblical prophecy, and the
imminent return of Christ—reappear frequently in many of the later revelations.
The revelations also follow the New Testament pattern of quoting and
paraphrasing earlier scripture; words, phrases, and ideas found in the Old and
New Testaments and in the Book of Mormon are diffused throughout. Revelations
addressed to numerous individual followers repeat a commission to proclaim to
all humankind the message of the gospel as revealed to Joseph Smith.
His work on the
Book of Mormon was not
Joseph
Smith’s only activity as a translator. In April
1829, he envisioned, translated, and dictated the text of an ancient
parchment that included an expanded version of John 21 that he said had been
written and hidden by the apostle John. Soon after organizing the church the
following year, he turned his attention to what he called a “new Translation”
of the Bible, perhaps best described as an inspired revision (and in some cases
expansion) of biblical passages. Unlike contemporaries who produced more
accessible English Bibles from Greek, Hebrew, or Latin versions, he read the
King James Version and “translated” it by adding glosses, rearranging clauses,
and at times appending entire pages of revealed text. The most significant of
these additions came between June and
December 1830 when Smith dictated a text expanding on the book of
Genesis. Though this translation of the Bible occupied much of his time from
June 1830 to July 1833, he did
not live to see the publication of the entire manuscript. The earliest
manuscripts of this translation will be published in this Revelations and
Translations series.
In
1835,
Joseph
Smith acquired manuscripts written on Egyptian scrolls, along with
several smaller papyrus documents and four Egyptian mummies. He dictated a
translation of some of this material to scribe
. As with the Book of Mormon,
Smith claimed no knowledge of the ancient language but, as Parrish noted,
“claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven.” As a result of these labors, he published a translation
of “some ancient Records . . . purporting to be the writings of Abraham” in the
church newspaper Times and Seasons in 1842, leaving the impression that more was
forthcoming.
Preserving his
revelations and translations was among
Joseph
Smith’s earliest priorities. Smith’s letters from the 1820s did not
survive and neither his journal nor his history predates 1832, but from the beginning,
he worked to preserve and publish his revelations and translations. He
copyrighted the Book of Mormon in 1829 and closely
monitored its publication, and he took care to preserve the manuscripts used
for publication. By summer 1830, he and convert
“began to arrange and copy the revelations” received to that
point.
The receipt, transcription, entry into manuscript books, and publication of the
revelations frequently occupied his attention. The book referred to herein as
Revelation Book 1 is the earliest extant fruit of those labors, likely dating
from early 1831, though possibly from
1830. This text was penned mainly by John Whitmer.
He and carried Revelation Book 1 to Missouri
in November 1831, where the revelations were to
be published. By early 1832, Smith and his scribes
had procured another book, designated herein as Revelation Book 2, in which to
record further words from heaven. Both manuscript books are published in this
volume.
Though loose manuscript copies
of some revelations also circulated, Revelation Book 1 became the principal
basis for the Book of Commandments, and Revelation Books 1 and 2 became the
basis for the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and
Covenants. The revelations recorded in these two manuscript books date from
1828 to 1834, the period when
Joseph
Smith’s written revelations were most frequent. By introducing offices and defining roles for presidents,
apostles, bishops, and priesthood quorums, these early revelations informed the
creation of an institutional church. One of the last items in Revelation Book 1
is a heading intended for minutes of the February
1834 organization of a standing “high counsel” established to provide
counsel and handle difficulties. Such councils were expected to administer
church business according to revelations already received and to seek further
revelation for themselves—always, however, within their particular purview, the
bounds of which were set by the canonized revelations.
The revelations
and translations of
Joseph
Smith have made him known worldwide. Since the time these texts were
recorded, they have been revered as God’s word and dismissed as frauds,
considered canonical and regarded as blasphemous. Reflecting in
1841 on Smith’s production of such texts, one
writer noted that “it is difficult to imagine a more difficult literary task
than to write what may be termed a continuation of the Scriptures.” But producing scripture,
Joseph Smith believed, was a fundamental component of his role as a revelator
and translator, and this series will provide unprecedented access to the
material that resulted from his efforts.