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Questions and Answers, 8 May 1838

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Questions and Answers, 8 May 1838

Source Note

JS, Questions and Answers, , Caldwell Co., MO, 8 May 1838. Featured version published in Elders’ Journal, July 1838, pp. 42–44. For more complete source information, see the source note for Elders’ Journal, Oct. 1837.

Historical Introduction

On 8 May 1838, JS prepared responses to a collection of questions he and other church leaders were asked approximately six months earlier while traveling from , Ohio, to , Missouri. The leaders had embarked on the trip in September 1837 in order to locate new gathering places for the and to organize church affairs in Far West. JS explained that on the journey, they held public meetings and were asked questions “daily and hourly . . . by all classes of people.” Upon his return, JS prepared a list of twenty questions—ranging from how the gold plates were discovered to whether the church practiced polygamy—and then published the list in the November 1837 issue of the Elders’ Journal, promising that the next issue would include answers to the queries. The next issue was not published until July 1838, after JS relocated from to and the periodical was reestablished in Far West.
JS’s journal entry for 8 May 1838 notes that he spent “the after part of the day, in answering the questions proposed.” He may have begun developing answers at the time the questions were asked in late 1837, perhaps in the public meetings the church leaders held in towns and villages in , , and along the way to . JS noted that the meetings “were tended with good success and generally allayed the prejudice and feeling of the people, as we judge from the treatment we received, being kindly and hospitably entertained.” Whatever the tone of JS’s initial oral responses to interested non-Mormons, he adopted a playful attitude in his written answers for the Latter-day Saint audience of the July 1838 issue of the Elders’ Journal. It is unknown whether JS or others continued working on the answers after 8 May 1838. Because the original document is apparently not extant, it remains unclear whether JS wrote the answers himself or relied on a scribe.

Footnotes

  1. [1]

    Travel Account and Questions, Nov. 1837.

  2. [2]

    See Prospectus for Elders’ Journal, 30 Apr. 1838.

  3. [3]

    JS, Journal, 8 May 1838.

  4. [4]

    Travel Account and Questions, Nov. 1837.

Asterisk (*) denotes a "featured" version, which includes an introduction and annotation. *Questions and Answers, 8 May 1838 Elders’ Journal, July 1838 History, 1838–1856, volume B-1 [1 September 1834–2 November 1838] “History of Joseph Smith”
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Page 44

Answer. If it is, there is a great defect in the book, or else it would have said so.
Question 20th. What are the fundamental principles of your religion.
Answer. The fundamental principles of our religion is the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, “that he died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended up into heaven;” and all other things are only appendages to these, which pertain to our religion.
But in connection with these, we believe in the , the power of faith, the enjoyment of the spiritual gifts according to the will of God, the restoration of the house of Israel, and the final triumph of truth. [p. 44]
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Source Note

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Page 44

Document Information

Related Case Documents
Editorial Title
Questions and Answers, 8 May 1838
ID #
405
Total Pages
3
Print Volume Location
JSP, D6:139–145
Handwriting on This Page
  • Printed text

Footnotes

  1. [20]

    Questions 18 and 19 and their answers reflect the complex debate over the biblical canon—that is, the authoritative list of divinely inspired scriptural books. Many nineteenth-century Protestants advocated the belief in a closed canon, whereas some other groups, such as the Latter-day Saints, contended that revelation was still possible and that the canon was open. The church’s 1830 Articles and Covenants addressed this ongoing controversy with an allusion to Revelation 22:17–18. This commonly cited passage prohibits adding to or taking away from “the words of the prophecy of this book,” which commentators interpreted variously as referring to the book of Revelation alone or the Bible as a whole. The Articles and Covenants stated that JS’s revelations contained divine truth and neither added to nor diminished the book of Revelation or the Bible. (Bruce, Canon of Scripture, 17–24; Holland, Sacred Borders, 1–15, 26–29; Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr. 1830 [D&C 20:35].)

    Bruce, Frederick F. The Canon of Scripture. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1988.

    Holland, David F. Sacred Borders: Continuing Revelation and Canonical Restraint in Early America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.

  2. [21]

    See Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr. 1830 [D&C 20:23–24].

  3. [22]

    See Revelation, Oct. 1830–B [D&C 33:15]; and Revelation, 5 Jan. 1831 [D&C 39:23].

  4. [23]

    See Revelation, ca. 8 Mar. 1831–A [D&C 46].

  5. [24]

    See Revelation, 5 Jan. 1831 [D&C 39:11].

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