Manuscript Revelation Books

Mormon History 1830-1844

Manuscript Revelation Books


Please note this is a page in process. It will be expanded as I make my way through this breakthrough volume. Also, since the Kirtland Revelations Book has been known for many years, this page deals primarily with the hitherto unknown Book of Commandments and Revelations.
Joseph Smith Papers Revelations and Translations series	The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations, Manuscript Revelation Books (Manuscript Revelation Books) published by the Historian's Press, an imprint of the LDS Church History Department, is edited by Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper. It is the first of four volumes projected for the Revelations and Translations series. 707 pages. $95.	General editors of The Joseph Smith Papers series are Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman.
Revelation volumes	MRB is a facsimilie edition of two manuscript volumes of revelations. Titled Book of Commandments and Revelations (BCR) and Kirtland Revelations Book (KRB) on their spines, they are referred to in Manuscript Revelation Books as Revelation Book 1 and Revelation Book 2.	Revelation Books 1 and 2 are "editorial titles … consistent with the widespread documentary editing practice of referring to documents by generic titles." Robert J. Woodford, "Introducing A Book of Commandments and Revelations, A Major New Documentary 'Discovery,'" BYU Studies 48, no. 3 (2009), 7.
Book of Commandments and Revelations	Most of the one hundred ten-plus revelations and other items in BCR are the earliest known versions of revelations between 1828 and 1834. Other than a few pages by Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer was the BCR scribe. He later returned to the work as a redactor, making changes for publication in the Book of Commandments, as did Oliver, Sidney Rigdon, and W. W. Phelps. Joseph personally made a few changes as well.	Of course MRB editors were unable to assign every mark in BCR to a specific redactor. These markings are assigned to Unknown.
Beginning date	When did John began copying revelations into BCR? Editors of MRB believe he may have begun as early as the summer of 1830 when he and Joseph began to "arrange and copy the revelations." But "[m]ore likely" he began "in Ohio, circa March 1831." (John was called to "keep a regular history" and assist Joseph in "translating all things" on March 8. A month later, he was "appointed to keep the Church record & History.")	Manuscript Revelation Books, 4–5 MH-A, 50 D&C 47 Minutes of April 9, 1831.
	Another possibility is that John had written the first 58 pages by early January 1831. Having been directed by revelation "to go to the Ohio, and carry the commandments and revelations, with me, to comfort and strengthen my brethren in that land," he probably arrived in Kirtland during the second week of January. Certainly one of the most important documents John could have taken was the Church's founding document, the Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ dated April 10, 1830. It includes core doctrines, baptismal and sacrament prayers, and the duties of elders, deacons, teachers, priests, and members—precisely the sort of things needed by a fledgling church without experienced leadership.	J. Whitmer, 13. "Mormonism," PT, Jan. 18, 1831. Source
	In BCR, the Articles and Covenants occur on pages 53–58, between the revelations of January 2 and January 5, 1831. The revelations on pages 1–53 are arranged in chronological order. Why is such an important document out of order? As I will discuss elsewhere, the Articles and Covenants may have not been initially included because they were not regarded as a revelation in the same sense as the others. But it was essential that the church in Kirtland have access to it as soon as possible. So after recording the January 2 revelation, as he prepared to leave Manchester, John copied the Articles and Covenants into the BCR. There is no direct evidence that he took the volume to Kirtand, but it would be consistent with the Painesville Telegraph's January 18 report that, "A young gentleman by the name of Whitmer arrived here last week … with a new batch of revelations from God, as he pretended, which have just been communicated to Joseph Smith."
Provenance	So where has BCR been all these years? According to the editors, several loose pages were among John's copy of Joseph's Bible revisions, purchased by the the RLDS Church (now Community of Christ) in 1902. Except for these pages, the BCR remained with the LDS authorities and is referred to in inventories of the Church Historian's Office through 1878. Apparently Joseph Fielding Smith took possession of the volume as early as 1907. When he became Church President in 1970, BCR was incorporated into the First Presidency's papers.	Manuscript Revelation Books, 4.
Missing pages	Manuscript pages 3, 5, 15, 17–18, 20–21, 25 are missing. The index indicates these pages contained D&C 5, 6, 11, 14, 18, 15, 16, and 17 respectively. The last half of D&C 4 is also on missing page 3.
Source document	BCR contains numerous stylistic and grammatical changes which were implemented in the early revelations published in the Evening and Morning Star. It is undoubtedly the volume John and Oliver Cowdery took to Independence as the source document for the partially-printed Book of Commandments (1833), and it was used with the Kirtland Revelations Book to produce the first Doctrine and Covenants (1835).
Copyright revelation	One of the greatest finds in BCR is early 1830 revelation instructing Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Knight, Hiram Page, and Josiah Stowell to secure the Canadian copyright to the Book of Mormon and authorizing them to sell it—a revelation previously known only through a late David Whitmer reference.	Copyright revelation
Editorial method	Manuscript Revelation Books presents full-color photos of every manuscript page and opposite, a letter-by-letter transcript with textual annotations. Color-coded revisions identify redactors, right down to commas and colons. Partially erased, written-over, smeared, or otherwise illegible letters are deciphered. Every jot and tittle, including "misshapen" letters and pin holes are documented. Example: "I" wipe-erased and then "& I" stricken.
	The Documents series will include volumes of earliest known versions without redactions. Historical annotations and associated documents will be provided in these volumes.
Works Cited	Works Cited is not included but will be available online (josephsmithpapers.org) sometime in the future. For now, one must consult the bibliography of Journals, Volume 1 to learn that Manuscript Revelation Books refers to the Kirtland Council Minute Book and the Far West Record by their (future) "editorial titles," Minute Book 1 and Minute Book 2.
Table of Contents	Revelations are not listed in the Table of Contents. Since there is no Index, one must turn to the table in Correspondence of Items in Revelation Books 1 and 2 with Selected Published Versions (691–694)—hardly an intuitive location. Since the table is in chronological, not section order, a few revelations must be hunted down (D&C 20, 133, 107 (partial), and 99) by scanning the 1981 column. (Other out-of-order sections are easily found in close proximity to one another).
Index	An indexwill be published as a separate volume in the future, but for now a 58-page PDF version is available on the Internet.
Typographical errors	Typos are inevitable, but so far I have encountered only one, in a description of the backward-f often substituted for the standard s, usually as the first- of a double-s: "The long [empty box] often used in nineteenth-century handwriting …" (p. 684). The box is a placeholder which should have been replaced by an image of the character.
Other Joseph Smith Papers series	The first of the three-volume Journals series was published in 2008.We understand 60,000 copies have been printed and sales seem to warrant the large run. The editors of Volume 1, 1832–1839 are Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen.
	It is anticipated that the next volume, the first in the History series, will be released next October.Other series are Documents, Legal and Business, and Administrative. Information about all series is available at the Joseph Smith Papers website.
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