The Joseph Smith Papers

For those who might be unfamiliar with this massive undertaking, the Joseph Smith Papers Project is an effort to compile and publish numerous revelations and other manuscripts, some of which have never before been seen, in order to facilitate new research. This is huge project, which will take many years to complete, represents a major breakthrough in the historical documentation of elements relating to Joseph Smith's life and work. The cool thing about being a BYU student is that many of the professors and students on campus are helping with the project research.



This week we examined the facsimiles and transcriptions of several revelations in order to look for new insights into the text. It's a little unsettling in some ways to see that the revelations weren't originally recorded in the manner we read them today. Any English teacher would have a thing or two to say about problems with run-on sentences, since punctuation certainly wasn't the forte of these scribes. Seeing the revelations written in this format made more sense in my mind than I had expected. Most of the time that I receive revelation, it doesn't come to me in the form of complete, perfectly punctuated sentences. The revelations recorded in this raw form agree more with my experience of getting particular impressions that don't necessarily come in the form of concrete words. It was enjoyable to read these familiar revelations in a more stream-of-consciousness paragraph format. This demonstrates that even though Joseph was a prophet and seer, he was still human and thus limited by mortal capabilities.

This manuscript format reminds me of an idea found in the Book of Mormon: "And if there be faults they be the faults of men" (Mormon 8:17). Despite the revelations being perfect, securing and printing a text of those revelations isn't necessarily a process without fault or hard labor. One of the things I noticed in the transcriptions was that Joseph Smith himself made many of the corrections to the original transcripts. Clearly he was preoccupied with making sure that the correct text of the revelations was the one that would be brought into the world view. Strangely, seeing these revelations in their original written form gave me a new appreciation for word processing. Having to write in and change sections of the manuscript manually took up extra space and time; however, I'm grateful to be able to see the process that the text went through, including mistakes that needed to be fixed and new ideas that needed to be added. On some level it's marvelous to see that God's even willing to work with people as flawed as we are. Although it might be easier to just reveal everything directly in written form (10 commandments style), the Lord allows us to participate in his work and even trusts us to use our own judgment as tools in His hands.

The sections of the Revelations and Translations volume that we examined were manuscripts that eventually became Doctrine & Covenants Section 88. This section is known as the "olive leaf," and it directly follows, both in chronological order and in the current ordering of the D&C, section 87, a revelation about the Civil War. For the most part, the changes to the manuscript merely fix problems of spelling or punctuation or clarify the meaning of particular sections of text. I certainly feel for John Whitmer trying to keep up with Joseph's revelation and having the pressure to record things exactly on his shoulders. The fact that these revelations weren't all received at the same time (even though they now comprise a single section of the Doctrine and Covenants) demonstrates the "line upon line, precept upon precept" principle outlined in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 28:30). Although we should hold ourselves to high standards, we also have to recognize that our human frailties preclude perfection in all of our efforts.

It might be tempting to say that the Lord would have been wise to just allow the typewriter or computer to be invented before translations and recorded revelations proceeded; however, there's something really awesome about seeing handwritten accounts. The very act of writing is a testament to the fact that these scribes saw Joseph as a prophet, seer, and revelator. I think we're sometimes tempted to assume that the work of the Lord will be clean and simple, but we have to remember that we're incorporating fallible humans into the mix.

This reminds me of something that came up at our stake conference today: a section of the famous Wentworth Letter.

“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”