GD NT 13: MeckMom LDS Gospel Doctrine New Testament Lesson 13
LDS Perspectives Podcast · 2017-08-24 · LDS Perspectives Podcast ... One semester it would be...
Transcript of LDS Perspectives Podcast · 2017-08-24 · LDS Perspectives Podcast ... One semester it would be...
LDS Perspectives Podcast
LDS Perspectives Podcast
Episode 54: The JST in the D&C with Kenneth Alford
(Released September 6, 2017)
This is not a verbatim transcript.
Some grammar and wording has been modified for clarity.
Taunalyn: Hello, this is Taunalyn Rutherford, and I’m here today with Dr. Ken
Alford to discuss his work on connections between the Doctrine and
Covenants and the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Welcome, Ken.
Ken Alford: Great, thank you. I appreciate the invitation.
Taunalyn: Great to have you. Dr. Ken Alford is a professor of church history and
doctrine at Brigham Young University. He served a mission in Bristol,
England. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from
Brigham Young University and a Master of Arts in international relations
from the University of Southern California, a master of computer science
from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and a PhD in
computer science from George Mason University.
After serving almost thirty years on active duty in the United States Army,
he retired as a colonel in 2008. During his service, his assignments
included work in the Pentagon, teaching at the United States Military
Academy at West Point, and working as a professor and department chair
at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
He has published and presented on a wide variety of subjects during his
career. His current research focuses on Latter-day Saint military service
and the Hyrum Smith Papers project.
Ken and his wife, Sherilee, have four children and fourteen grandchildren.
Today we’ll be focusing on another of your research interests — the
connections between the Joseph Smith Translation and the Doctrine and
Covenants.
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Can you tell us — this was from a presentation that you gave at ED week
— a little bit about your interest in these connections and some of the
background information about the Joseph Smith Translation?
Ken Alford: Well, my interest in the Joseph Smith Translation started actually before it
was even included in the LDS version of the Bible. Growing up, I kept
hearing about the “Inspired Version” and was always curious about what it
was.
As a student at Brigham Young University, I took a course from Dr.
Robert J. Matthews, and it’s to Brother Matthews we, as a church, really
owe a lot of our familiarity and relationship with the Joseph Smith
Translation today. It was Dr. Matthews who, with his master’s and PhD,
first really brought the Joseph Smith Translation back to the church.
I took his course. It was what was called an “R” course. It was a
repeatable course, and every semester he taught it a little bit differently.
One semester it would be the Old Testament, one semester it would be the
New Testament, etc. I took it, I think, four times.
Taunalyn: Wow.
Ken Alford: It was a one or two credit course. In fact, as I was seriously dating my
wife, we ended up taking it together and we went through a copy
published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Herald Publishing, and we marked all of the three thousand and four
hundred and something changes in that Bible. That was our Sunday
morning activity before church, and we actually marked every one of the
changes. It was kind of a fun activity.
I’ve just really enjoyed learning about the Joseph Smith Translation from
especially that time until the present.
Taunalyn: That’s been part of your marriage.
Ken Alford: It has.
Taunalyn: Fantastic. Before we look directly at connections between the Doctrine
and Covenants and the Joseph Smith Translation, can you explain for our
listeners why we call it a translation?
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Ken Alford: It’s a King James Version of the Bible — and it’s English, of course —
and we end up with an English copy of the Bible. Dr. Matthews gave a
statement that I’d just like to share. This is in a book he wrote called
Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible, and here’s how he explained it.
He said, “This is apparently the sense in which he, Joseph, understood the
work he was doing with the Bible. Since the Bible did not originate in
English, his work, to some degree, would amount to an inspired, or
revelatory, translation into English of that which the ancient prophets and
apostles had written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and/or Greek.”
Now we should also note that Joseph referred to this effort, himself, as a
translation. The Lord also, in revelations that are now canonized in the
Doctrine and Covenants, refers to it as a translation. So [it’s a translation]
in the sense that it takes the English that’s there and puts it into the
English that gives a better sense of the original intent. I should note at this
point though, that Joseph never, at any point, says he is restoring, word for
word, the exact and original text as written by those original authors. What
Joseph is doing is restoring the sense of the text and restoring the doctrine,
and sometimes that involved adding parenthetical phrases that, almost
certainly, were not in the original text.
Other things happened in the translation; there are major additions, texts
that have been lost — for example, much of the Book of Moses. There are
other little pieces that have been lost. There are many hundreds of
changes, little revisions to the text. There are also a couple of deletions.
For example, Joseph said the entire book of Song of Solomon, he put a
“not” that says, “Not inspired.” When you read it, it’s basically Hebrew
love poetry.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: There’s also several entire books, most of them from the Old Testament,
in which no changes were made. For example, Malachi, Ruth, Esther,
Ecclesiastes, and so on have no changes at all. In the New Testament,
there’s only two books that don’t have changes though, and that’s 2 John
and 3 John.
The New Testament, proportionately, has a much higher percentage of
changes that Joseph made.
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Taunalyn: Right, okay. Great distinction to make. Thank you.
What kind of a Bible did Joseph Smith use to do his translation?
Ken Alford: Well, here’s where I wish we were in audio or visual.
Taunalyn: Video, right.
Ken Alford: A video at the time, because I could show that what we’ve got on the table
here is a copy. This is an 1834 addition of what’s called a Cooperstown
Bible. It was produced by two brothers whose last name was Finney.
Many times in publications it’s called a Finney Bible or a Finney–
Cooperstown Bible. It was published in Cooperstown, New York, prior to
the Baseball Hall of Fame going in there. What the Finneys did is they
made stereo plate. Stereotype is what it’s called. It’s a metal plate of the
page, so once they had produced an edition, they could rerun it. That’s
what we have here.
I have an 1834 edition, but on October 8th, 1828, there’s a note in the
original that Joseph and Oliver Cowdery used that says that they
purchased it from the Grandin Bookstore. That’s the same Grandin that
published the Book of Mormon. They went into that bookstore on the 8th
of October, 1829, and purchased a copy of this Finney–Cooperstown
Bible.
It’s a very large Bible. It’s eleven inches tall and nine inches wide. It has a
beautiful leather binding.
Taunalyn: Very beautiful.
Ken Alford: The pages are huge. It’s three inches thick. It’s a very, very large Bible,
and this is what they began and used throughout the Joseph Smith
Translation.
Taunalyn: Wonderful.
Ken Alford: I should mention the original is housed today in the archives of the
Community of Christ, which was formerly the Reorganized Church.
Taunalyn: Great, thank you so much for sharing that.
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Could you help us understand a little about the history, the timeline, of the
Joseph Smith Translation? For example, who served as scribes as he was
receiving this translation?
Ken Alford: Well, what we have is a series of events that occur. They buy the Bible but
apparently don’t start on the Joseph Smith Translation right away, or if
they do, there’s not much recorded. The earliest date that we have
recorded for a translation effort is June 1830, and you can actually find
that by going to the Pearl of Great Price and looking at Moses 1.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Earlier editions of the Doctrine and Covenants dated that differently.
Through the research of Dr. Matthews and others, they were able to
correctly date it as June of 1830.
Just two months after the church is organized, there they are. They have
this brand new church, lot of things going on, and Joseph is given this
charge. He calls it a “branch of his calling,” and it’s kind of the way that
the Lord uses to teach Joseph more of the gospel. They go from June 1830
until March of 1831 in the Old Testament.
They start, basically, with Genesis 1:1 in the Old Testament. Joseph
receives that vision that Moses had received. Moses 1 is really kind of
Genesis 0, if you like.
Taunalyn: Right, I like what Richard Bushman calls it — an expansion. We get
expansions.
Ken Alford: It is absolutely an expansion.
Taunalyn: Yeah.
Ken Alford: They work on that for nine months. They don’t even finish the book of
Genesis, and there’s a whole series of scribes. We have people scribing at
different times in Genesis. Oliver Cowdery starts because he’s the guy that
buys the book with Joseph. He does the first five chapters or so of Moses.
Then John Whitmer takes over, but not for very long. Emma, interestingly,
not only gets to scribe for a short time on the Book of Mormon text early
in Mosiah, but she also scribes for Joseph in the book of Moses. She does
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chapter 6, verses 19 through 52. Then John Whitmer picks up again, and
we can see this in the transcriptions because the handwriting changes.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: After they reach Moses 7, then Sidney Rigdon takes over, and that occurs,
in large measure, because of section 35. What we have canonized in the
Doctrine and Covenants as section 35. Sidney Rigdon is charged with
being Joseph’s scribe. The Lord assigns that responsibility to him because
at this time Oliver Cowdery is gone. He’s on a mission to the Lamanites
heading out toward Missouri, and Sidney basically takes over at that point,
and while there may be a few verses here and there, Sidney is the primary
scribe for the rest of the Joseph Smith Translation.
Taunalyn: I see, okay. So, what percentage would you say is really Sidney?
Ken Alford: Well, percentage is a funny thing here because there are about 3400+
changes in the Joseph Smith Translation, but that number includes
punctuation. Sometimes it includes verses being switched, like some of the
chapters in the book of Revelation. Joseph reorders the list of the verses,
so it reads better.
In the New Testament, some of them are complete additions, so the text is
completely new, and others are simply one word changes. In that way, it’s
a little bit hard to give you a percentage answer because when Oliver
actually starts with what becomes Moses 1:1, they’re writing the entire
text of the Bible over again. It is very laborious. That’s why it takes so
long to do.
The first twenty-something chapters of Genesis, they are writing out
everything, whether it changes or not. You can just imagine how slow that
would be. Later they come up with a system. I’ve actually had a chance to
hold the original Bible that’s in Independence. Curators there in the
Community of Christ Archives let us go through it, and you can see where
it changes.
What they came up with was, actually, a little kind of a symbology, I
guess, for lack of a better word, where they would put dots in verses or Xs
in verses. Then there is a supplemental page that matches that verse where
the changes are written out in longhand, but only the changes are written
out.
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Then, to further complicate it, they went back to the original manuscript
and revised it again, making additional changes to the text. So, it’s what’s
called Old Testament One manuscript, Old Testament Two manuscript.
This is really an involved effort that takes multiple years on Joseph’s part.
Taunalyn: Right, and did he ever finish this translation?
Ken Alford: Well, Joseph writes in a letter. … Let’s see if I can come up with a copy of
that letter here. He writes in 1833 that “we have today finished with the
translation.”
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Finished, though, is kind of a fungible word. It’s that they’re finished in
the sense that they have gone through the entire biblical text once, but the
translation is in no way finished, meaning that Joseph doesn’t make any
more changes the rest of his life.
From 1833, when Joseph writes that they have finished the translation
“this day” until Joseph’s death in June of 1844, Joseph continues to make
changes to the manuscript. As he receives further light, knowledge, and
understanding, and is reading in the scriptures, he identifies things where
the sense and the scriptures can be better communicated, and he
continues to modify and to wordsmith some of the text.
We also have no reason to doubt that if the book had actually come to
publication in Joseph’s life, that in a final going-through prior to
publication even additional changes might not have been made.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Brigham Young makes this statement. This has just come out this year
because the Joseph Smith Papers project published the Council of Fifty
minutes that scholars and historians and members have been waiting for,
for well over a century.
In there, there’s a report of an April 18th, 1844 meeting, and the notes
from the Council of Fifty record this statement by Brigham Young. It says,
“He, Brigham Young, supposed that there had not yet been a perfect
revelation given because we cannot understand it. Yet, we receive a little
here and a little there.”
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And then this important statement that Brigham made — and by the way,
Joseph Smith is present when this statement is made —
Taunalyn: Okay.
Ken Alford: This is a Council of Fifty minutes with Joseph there.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: The minutes say, “He, Brigham, should not be stumbled.” Kind of a fun
19th century was of saying, “I wouldn’t be surprised if the prophet should
translate the Bible 40,000 times over, and yet it should be different in
some places every time.”
Taunalyn: Wow.
Ken Alford: “Because when God speaks,” Brigham continued, “He always speaks
according to the capacity of the people.”
Joseph is learning a great deal about the gospel. We have wonderful
revelations received that are now part of the Doctrine and Covenants that
come because of this translation effort. But I love that insight from
Brigham; that if Joseph did this every time he looked at it, he would have
additional understanding and be able to better convey the original intent of
the writers of those biblical texts.
That’s just a wonderful statement that sheds more light on the Joseph
Smith Translation from a publication just this year by the Joseph Smith
Papers project.
Taunalyn: Okay, and it really expands our idea of what translation is and what that
branch of his calling was.
Ken Alford: It really does.
Taunalyn: And perhaps our own, which we’ll talk about later, okay?
What is the place of the Joseph Smith Translation in our own LDS Bible
today? And perhaps a little background on that history.
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Ken Alford: Well, the church was actually commanded to publish what was then called
the New Translation. Maybe I should take just a little detour and give
some terms first.
The translation effort Joseph did was never, ever called the Joseph Smith
Translation in his day.
Taunalyn: Important to know.
Ken Alford: It’s called, in Joseph’s day — and actually the wording in the Doctrine and
Covenants when the Lord refers to it is simply “The Translation,” or “The
New Translation.”
In Joseph’s lifetime, it’s known as the “New Translation.” The book is
commanded to be published, actually twice, in the Doctrine and
Covenants. The first time in section 104:48, where it says, “Print my
words. The fullness of my scriptures.”
And then, second, a command is given to William Law, who is second
counselor in the First Presidency in section 124, and this happens to be
verse 89, in which William Law receives this direct commandment from
the Lord: “Publish the New Translation of my Holy Word unto the
inhabitants of the earth.”
Couldn’t be clearer. The Lord wants this published.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Well, for various reason, including the fact that William Law apostatizes
and is instrumental in Joseph’s martyrdom, the New Translation is never
published in Joseph’s lifetime. Following the death of the Prophet,
Brigham Young then is sustained by the church as president.
They seek to obtain the manuscript for the Joseph Smith Translation, or
the New Translation, from Emma because it’s in her possession.
Taunalyn: I see.
Ken Alford: And by the way, we owe Emma a great deal. We owe a great debt to her,
because it’s Emma that preserves the document, the manuscript of the
New Translation, and brings it out of Missouri and into Illinois.
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If it wasn’t for Emma Smith, that manuscript could very well have been
destroyed or lost, because Joseph was in Carthage. Hyrum was in
Carthage and the entire First Presidency, with Sidney there for a time, was
in Carthage Jail. As Emma leaves and travels to the Quincy area in
Illinois, she takes with her that manuscript. She’s also served as one of the
scribes, so when emissaries of Brigham come to her and ask for the
manuscripts, from her perspective — if I understand Emma right — she
sees this as, “Well, you know, the Lord commanded you to publish it. You
didn’t do it. I’m the one that saved it, so no.” She does not give up the
manuscript.
The reason we have portions of the Joseph Smith Translation prior to 1979
in our scriptures is because they were published in the Times and Seasons
in Nauvoo. What we call Joseph Smith Matthew and the Book of Moses
were published in the Times and Seasons. As far as we have them in the
Pearl of Great Price, they were published in the Times and Seasons as well
in a serial fashion.
Taunalyn: I see, okay.
Ken Alford: It looks like they had intended to publish more. That’s why, when you
read the Book of Moses, you get along to the very end and it just ends,
right in the middle of the story. That’s because that’s where it ended when
it was published in the Times and Seasons.
Taunalyn: That’s really helpful.
Ken Alford: And so, Franklin D. Richards, fast forwarding into the early 1850s,
Franklin D. Richards, a member of the Twelve, is over in England. He has
copies of the Times and Seasons. Church members in England don’t have
all the resources, materials, and access to church leadership, so he puts
together a little pamphlet that he calls “A Pearl of Great Price.”
He has republished those portions of the Book of Moses and Joseph Smith
Matthew, and then the Pearl of Great Price travels back across the Atlantic
in 1878. It’s canonized as a standard work. They make some adjustments
to the things that are in it, but the portions of the Joseph Smith Translation
stay in the Pearl of Great Price.
That’s all we had as a church until 1979.
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Taunalyn: Okay, that narrative, that really adds to the Pearl of Great Price.
Ken Alford: And so, the Pearl of Great Price, it was wonderful that Franklin D.
Richards did that, or the church would have been completely without any
Joseph Smith Translation until 1979.
Taunalyn: Some of the most beautiful language that we have is from Joseph —
Ken Alford: It’s really wonderful text.
Taunalyn: Really, yeah.
Ken Alford: What happens is then, in the 1970s, there’s a scripture committee formed.
Brother Matthews, who brings the Joseph Smith Translation forward,
works under the direction of Elder McConkie, and I believe Elder Packer,
and others on this scripture committee, and they reach the decision that
they want to add text from what’s then called the Inspired Version.
It was published by the Reorganized Church in 1867 as the Inspired
Version translation.
Taunalyn: Let’s look at some of these comparisons that you made in your
presentation. For instance, Doctrine and Covenants section 29 has a very
interesting connection with the Joseph Smith Translation. Can you talk
about that?
Ken Alford: Section 29 is a section that is kind of the Cliff Notes, if you like, to the
Plan of Salvation. You can look at section 29 and find things in there; it’s
verse per verse. It has probably more information about the Plan of
Salvation than anywhere else in the scriptures, and it is almost like the
Cliff Notes.
What you have to recognize is that it’s not done chronologically as we
would order it.
Taunalyn: Okay.
Ken Alford: But you can very quickly rearrange the verses into an order that we would
consider, but that’s what it is. I see it as the Cliff Notes to the Plan of
Salvation.
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The question is, what’s the connection to the JST? Well, before we answer
that, we have to explain that at the time these revelations were being
recorded, John Whitmer was the church historian. That’s a whole other
fun story. He doesn’t want to be historian, and Joseph gets the revelation
and he says, “I recognize this as from the Lord,” and he does it.
John Whitmer keeps a book called the Book of Commandments and
Revelations. The Joseph Smith Papers project has given that a second
designation for clarity. They call it Revelation Book I.
Taunalyn: Okay.
Ken Alford: This book has been kept, beginning in 1831, by John Whitmer, and it’s, in
many cases, the earliest copy we have of the revelations in the Doctrine
and Covenants.
That book was placed for safekeeping in the First Presidency’s safe by a
young apostle by the name of Joseph Fielding Smith, who was also church
historian, and he placed it in there to keep it safe because it’s an
irreplaceable book. Well, what happened is that over the years, other
things got piled on top of it.
President Hinckley once described the First Presidency safe as something
akin to a teenager’s closet, and they forgot. The church forgot, quite
honestly forgot, that that’s where the Book of Commandments and
Revelations was, as I understand it, and it basically was lost for decades
— over half a century.
Taunalyn: That image of a teenager’s closet …
Ken Alford: As part of the Joseph Smith Papers project, they asked for permission —
from then President Hinckley — to inventory the contents of the First
Presidency safe, looking for items that might be connected to Joseph.
President Hinckley, as I understand it, not only gave them his blessing, but
said, “Feel free to straighten it up while you’re in there.” And they found,
much to their happiness, the original Book of Commandments and
Revelations kept by John Whitmer.
Now I say all of that because in section 29 there’s a paragraph, before
section 29 begins, and listeners can actually go to the Joseph Smith Papers
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website and see what I’m about to share with you, because you can see the
original pages. That entire book, as well as Revelation Book II (which is
known as the Kirtland Revelation Book), the entire books are on the
Joseph Smith Papers website. That website is josephsmithpapers.org.
Taunalyn: And very searchable.
Ken Alford: And very searchable.
There’s a paragraph that John Whitmer added to section 29 that does not
appear in the Doctrine and Covenants today. It’s because it’s not part of
the revelation. It was just an explanation that John Whitmer added, and
here’s what it says: “A revelation to six elders of the church and three
members.” Now that’s very similar to the way the section heading reads.
Here’s where it becomes interesting: “They understood from holy writ,
that the time had come that the people of God should see eye to eye, and
they, seeing somewhat different upon the death of Adam, that is, his
transgression. Therefore, they made it a subject of prayer and inquired of
the Lord, and thus came the word of the Lord through Joseph, the Seer.”
Okay, so section 29 comes about because early members of the church are
having, it doesn’t say argument, but friendly discussion, shall we say,
regarding Adam and his transgression. If you look at Christendom today,
we have not resolved this. Adam is viewed in any number of ways by the
Christian world.
And so it’s only natural that section 29 was received so early in church
history. These people are still learning the gospel — much of the gospel
hasn’t even been restored yet. It’s not surprising that they disagree about
Adam and his transgression.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Section 29 is then received. If your listeners will open up a copy of section
29 and look at the footnotes on any page, something that they may not
have noticed before will just jump out at you, and that is, that the majority
of footnotes, or the most common source in the footnotes I should say, are
references to the Book of Moses.
Taunalyn: Okay.
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Ken Alford: Basically, not only is it Cliff Notes to the Plan of Salvation, but section 29
becomes a commentary from the Lord on the Book of Moses.
Taunalyn: Which had been received.
Ken Alford: Well, then the question that arises is, why are they talking in the church
about Adam at this point in church history? If you look at the Book of
Moses, beginning with chapter one, it’s received in June of 1830. Section
29 follows not very long after that.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: This information is starting to be shared with the Church, which is causing
them to have discussions, which is causing them to ask the prophet for
additional light and knowledge.
Section 29 — as I read the history and read what John Whitmer gave us —
comes about, at least partially, because the Saints have had this brought to
their attention, because of Joseph’s efforts in the Bible. There’s some
wonderful, wonderful insights into the Plan of Salvation in section 29. It’s
fun just to go through and look at it again.
Taunalyn: Oh, thank you. In Doctrine and Covenants section 37, Joseph Smith is
commanded to stop the translation. What was going on there?
Ken Alford: Yeah. What happens is the missionaries to the Lamanites — Oliver
Cowdery, Ziba Peterson, Parley P. Pratt, and Peter Whitmer Jr. — they
have traveled through Kirtland, and their main mission is to share the
gospel in Kirtland.
They think it’s to teach to the Native Americans out on the border of the
Lamanites, as the Lord calls it in section 28, but it’s really Kirtland. And
just almost overnight, the center of gravity of the church becomes this
little backwater place called Kirtland. The Lord in section 20 commands
Joseph and the Church to “Go to the Ohio.” They all know that means
Kirtland.
Taunalyn: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Ken Alford: In there, though, to show how important this is, Joseph is told to stop
translating. Now if this is a main branch of his calling and the Lord says,
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“I’m suspending the main branch of your calling until you do something,”
it immediately gets Joseph’s and the church members’ attention.
Joseph fulfills the commandment. He travels to Kirtland very quickly.
That’s a wonderful separate story for another time, but once he arrives in
Kirtland, he and Sidney take up again the translation. And then what
follows is section 45, which is a real major event in Joseph Smith’s
translation.
Taunalyn: Well, let’s talk about section 45 for just a minute.
Ken Alford: Well, section 45 is unique in John Whitmer’s Revelation Book One, or the
Book of Commandments and Revelations. Other revelations are identified
as a commandment, but section 45 is labeled as a prophecy. I believe it’s
the only revelation in the entire revelation book that is so labeled.
Taunalyn: Really, prophecy? Okay.
Ken Alford: The question is, “What’s going on there?” Joseph is promised by the Lord
in section 38, primarily in 38, that if they will travel with the Saints to the
Ohio, He has great things in store for them.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: He says he’ll endow them with power. He’ll teach them additional things.
They don’t fully understand what all that means, but one of the things that
happens is, when the church moves to Kirtland, there is more revelation
that has been canonized that was received there in a shorter period than in
any other time in church history. The Lord just pours down knowledge on
the heads of the Latter-day Saints.
Taunalyn: Yes.
Ken Alford: One of the things that happens is section 45 is that Joseph asks questions.
Joseph is very curious, apparently, about the Second Coming, as many of
us are and, at various times, he asks the Lord for information. There’s a
fun piece that your listeners can go to in section 130, where the Lord
basically says, “Joseph, I’m not going to tell you when it is, and don’t ask
anymore. I love you, but just ...” That’s paraphrasing of course.
Taunalyn: Of course.
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Ken Alford: But this is a time when Joseph has asked for information. The Lord gives
Joseph kind of a commentary on what’s called the Olivet Discourse. It’s
the last verse or two of Matthew 23 and then Matthew 24 in the King
James Bible. And then the Lord goes in and takes that information and
applies it to our dispensation.
Section 45 is kind of the Olivet Discourse with a “how-to guide” from the
Lord on how to survive and thrive, and prepare for the second coming.
Taunalyn: I like that.
Ken Alford: He gives counsel that is not in the Olivet Discourse, because from their
perspective, that’s thousands of years in the future. For us, it’s coming and
it’s getting closer. And so, in there, the Lord is teaching Joseph and the
Saints how to prepare for the Second Coming, but then when you reach
verses 60 - 62, the Lord tells Joseph, basically, stop translating the Old
Testament. Switch and start doing the New Testament.
Now knowing Joseph Smith, the very next time they sit down to translate,
which I believe is almost the next day — if it isn’t, then it’s the next day
after that — they stop where they’re at in the Old Testament and they
begin with Matthew 1:1. It’s not very long until Joseph reaches the end of
Matthew 23 and 24, and then receives the Joseph Smith Translation
version of the Olivet Discourse, which we know today in the Pearl of
Great Price as Joseph Smith Matthew.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: It has additional insights. And so whenever you read Joseph Smith
Matthew and the Pearl of Great Price, or whenever you read section 45,
you should pair it with the other one.
Taunalyn: Okay.
Ken Alford: Because they are bookends and they go together.
Taunalyn: Can you give us some insights into what we’ll find, perhaps different, in
the Joseph Smith Translation? Can you give us and an idea of how those
compare?
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Ken Alford: Well, the emphasis in section 45 is that the Lord gives Joseph a Reader’s
Digest condensed version, if you like, of the Olivet Discourse. And then
he tells him how to prepare, because scattered throughout section 45, is
that advice, as I mentioned. For example, He says in verse 3, “Listen to
me. The best thing you can do to prepare for the Second Coming is to
simply listen to me.” In verses 9 and 10, He says, “Make and keep
covenants.” In verse 32, He says, “As members of the Church, stand in
holy places.” In Verse 35, He says. “Look, things are going to get
challenged in the last days, but don’t be troubled.” He says in verses 37
and 39, “I want you to actively look for the signs. I have sprinkled lots of
signs in the narrative approaching the Second Coming. I’ve told you what
they are. When you see these signs, recognize the Second Coming is
approaching.”
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: He says in verse 44, “I want you to watch for me; anxiously watch for
me.” In verse 57, after in the verses before that, talking about the ten
virgins, He very explicitly says, “Here’s what you do. You receive the
truth and then you have to take the Holy Spirit for your guide so that you
will not be deceived.”
When you add them all up together, these are insights that He does not
give His apostles, who He gives the Olivet Sermon to, (or His disciples, as
He says) but He does give it to us because this is imminent in our
dispensation.
It’s wonderful to read both of them together and see how they fit together.
Taunalyn: Section 76 is one that we are all very familiar with. That vision of the
three degrees of glory. That comes as a direct result of the Joseph Smith
Translation. Can you give us the background there; some of the insights
there?
Ken Alford: You bet. Most of the Doctrine and Covenants does not include information
about the receipt of the revelation. They’re not self-documented. You have
to learn the history separately, and that’s where the section headings and
other things come in handy.
Section 76, though, is different. Section 76 is one of the few self-
documenting sections in the Doctrine and Covenants. We know from
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those opening verses where they are, what they’re doing, when they’re
doing it, and which specific verse they are at in the Joseph Smith
Translation process.
As they have the Bible opened up — and again, it’s kind of fun to go on
the Joseph Smith Papers website and read through these early copies of
things — but what they’re doing is translating. They reach John 5:29, and
in John 5:29 it talks about a binary situation. There’s a resurrection for the
damned, and there’s a resurrection, basically, for the saved. And Joseph
inquires of the Lord — and the verse doesn’t get changed that much word-
wise, but the verse gets changed — and it tells us in section 76, “And shall
come forth; they who have done good, in the resurrection of the just.” And
“just” there, it’s kind of shorthand for those who are “justified”; those who
have had their sins cleansed through the Atonement of Jesus Christ.
They’ve been justified through the Atonement of Christ.
“And they who have done evil, in the resurrection of the unjust.” “Unjust”
there is a good kind of shorthand for “unjustified”; those who have chosen
to not accept the Atonement of Christ fully and have to pay at least in part
for their sins.
As we apply that into section 76, those who are justified — who have had
their sins atoned for by Christ — are those in the celestial and terrestrial
kingdoms. Those who are unjustified are those in the telestial kingdom
and what we often call “outer darkness” or refer to as “the Sons of
Perdition.”
We call section 76 “The Vision,” but Elder Ballard and others have taught
— and as you read section 76, you can see — that it’s really the [plural].
It’s a series of six separate visions that occur over a period of it looks like
about 90 minutes, and Joseph and Sidney see the same thing. We
sometimes have a view that they were alone when this was happening, but
that’s not the case.
Philo Dibble and others tell us that “we” were there watching.
Taunalyn: Right. We have their accounts, right?
Ken Alford: What we do have is accounts that they’re there, but they do not share
information from what is shared in the vision. But apparently Joseph and
Sidney are discussing while the vision is going on, communicating with
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each other and pointing things out. Joseph makes a statement one time that
if you could peer into heaven for five minutes, you would know more than
has ever been written — and these visions go for an hour and a half.
Joseph later makes the point, and it notes toward the end of the revelation,
that what we’re receiving is just the smallest part of what Joseph received.
He makes a statement about the “hundredth part.”
If you think that what we have in section 76, as wonderful as it is, is about
1% of what Sidney and Joseph received. But oh, what wonderful,
wonderful, revelations, and they’re a direct connection to the Joseph Smith
Translation.
Taunalyn: Wonderful.
Ken Alford: And I should just add the reason this is received at the John Johnson farm.
It’s in an upstairs room. It’s a beautiful coral kind of orange–pink color in
the trim, and the reason they’re at the John Johnson farm is because they
just were not able to get as much translation done in Kirtland as they
wanted.
It’s a new church. We just don’t have church leadership. Joseph is pretty
much everything at this point, but everybody wants a piece of Joseph.
John Johnson offers his farm and they go to Hiram, Ohio, so that Joseph
can get more translation done.
Sidney follows him to Hiram and rents a home across the street from the
John Johnson farm so they can work on the translation. That’s where the
bulk of the Joseph Smith Translation is done: Hiram, Ohio.
Taunalyn: It’s a powerful place to be, that room; it’s powerful to sit there today.
Ken Alford: It really is.
Taunalyn: So much more to say about section 76, but let’s move on in terms of these
connections. What about section 91, for instance? There is also a direct
relationship there.
Ken Alford: Joseph and Sidney continue after receiving section 132. They continue
through the New Testament. Significant changes are made throughout the
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Gospels. Oh my goodness; percentage wise, I think it’s the highest amount
of changes — and what it’s doing is, it’s restoring the divinity of Christ.
If you look at what the Joseph Smith Translation does, it does a couple of
things. It restores knowledge of the Plan of Salvation. It restores
knowledge of the divinity of Christ. It restores knowledge of covenants. It
restores knowledge of gospel truths that had just been lost; just taken out
of the Bible, as it says in the Book of Mormon. Plain and precious truths
have been taken, and Joseph puts many of them back. They work all the
way through the ending of the book of Revelation and along the way, we
get section 77, which contains questions and answers about their
translation work in the book of Revelation, and some other things.
Then when they finish the New Testament, they realize, ‘“Oh, we left the
Old Testament midstream. We just stopped when the Lord said in section
45 ‘move’ and we moved.” So they go back and pick up the Old
Testament. The percentage of changes in the Old Testament is much,
much, smaller. There are some significant changes, but percentage-wise
it’s much, much less. And as I said, there are many verses — many books
actually; I’ll do a quick count: two, four, six, twelve books in the Old
Testament — that don’t have any changes.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: But then they go through and finish the Old Testament.
Taunalyn: Okay. Before we leave the connections, can we talk about section 132?
Are there connections there?
Ken Alford: There are connections there. Section 132 has a very unique history as well.
Portions of it, as the section heading mentions, were probably received as
early as 1831, but it’s not until Joseph is in Nauvoo that the section is
actually committed to paper and shared with some members of the Church
at that point.
It’s not actually added into the Doctrine and Covenants until after the
Church is out west.
Section 132, as the opening verses tell us, comes about because Joseph has
questions about the ancient patriarchs and prophets because he knows they
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have more than one wife. He asks the Lord, “How can this be? How could
Abraham, Isaac, Moses, and others be justified in this process?”
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Joseph has translated the Book of Mormon, and in Jacob it tells us that the
Lord’s program, unless he commands otherwise, is monogamy. Joseph
asks the Lord and he receives the answer: “When I turn the key, plural
marriages can be authorized — but only when I turn the key.”
It comes because the general assumption is that Joseph’s questions are
raised because he’s translating in the Old Testament in 1831, and then
moves into the New Testament — but it’s raising these questions as he
sees these men who are clearly approved and favored of God who have
more than one wife.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: And then it causes that great revelation, which for us today is about eternal
marriage, and Joseph learns those principles as a result of his work with
the Joseph Smith Translation, at least partially.
Taunalyn: Right, and when we’re trying to confront that issue of polygamy, I think
it’s helpful to see its outgrowth from this Joseph Smith Translation to a
degree; the thought that Joseph was questioning at that point.
Ken Alford: Because it’s a legitimate question, and how wonderful that Joseph is able
to ask the Lord and receive an answer.
Taunalyn: Right.
Ken Alford: Similar, on a smaller scale to what, I guess, we can do.
Taunalyn: We joked about my research on India, being part of everything; somehow
tying that in.
Ken Alford: Everything Taunalyn does somehow ties back to India. If any of the
listeners ever meet her, be prepared to speak about India.
Taunalyn: Well, there is a parallel. I have found that in interviewing Latter-day
Saints in India who participated in the translation process themselves, in
translating the scriptures into those native Indian languages, there’s this
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parallel. There’s this ongoing restoration that involves translation, and
even in our own daily lives, as we each seek to encounter the words of
Christ in the scriptures.
Can you talk about that parallel, perhaps?
Ken Alford: Well, each of us, as we approach the scriptures, has to figure out how that
scriptural text is meaningful in our life. It’s wonderful to understand
what’s called the exegesis, where the scripture came from. What’s the
background? What’s the context? What’s going on in the church? What’s
going on in the nation or the world at the time the scriptures are given?
That’s wonderful information. It can really help open up the meaning of
the scriptures, but, ultimately, when you read the scriptures, it’s the
principles and doctrines found there that you incorporate into your life that
make a difference.
You’re not helped that much by understanding the background. Your life
is blessed by living those principles and teachings that the Lord has shared
through his prophets, which we can have the Holy Ghost confirmed to us.
And so, in that sense it’s almost a translation, if you like, for us personally
as we try to determine what the Lord would have us do with this
wonderful information that He’s shared with prophets and apostles.
Taunalyn: Anything else?
Ken Alford: Well, I guess I would just note that the Doctrine and Covenants, our book
of scriptures for our dispensation, is significantly influenced by Joseph’s
work in the Joseph Smith Translation. We highlighted a couple of those
sections today, but depending on how you count it, there are several dozen
sections that are influenced in various ways because of what Joseph is
doing.
How wonderful that Joseph’s efforts in learning the gospel and looking at
the biblical text has provided all of this additional scripture, insight,
principles, and doctrines for us to benefit from. I just think it’s important
that listeners recognize the Joseph Smith Translation is one of the major
influences on that wonderful book we call the Doctrine and Covenants.
Taunalyn: Thank you, Ken.
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Ken Alford: Thank you.
Disclaimer: LDS Perspectives Podcast is not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ
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and its parent organization may or may not agree with them. While the
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