Anyone interested in the Book of Mormon can now come closer than ever to being in the room with Joseph Smith as he dictated the text in 1829. The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon is a work that brings heaven and earth together, said President Russell M. Nelson at an event on Tuesday, Jan. 25, celebrating the latest edition of the Joseph Smith Papers project.
“Its original manuscript is one of the most significant and sacred artifacts the Church possesses,” said the leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. “Church historians have taken great care — over more than a century — to gather even the most minuscule fragments of the manuscript and preserve them from further damage.”
A new volume in the Joseph Smith Papers project — part of the Revelations and Translations series which contains facsimiles of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon — now makes those historic and sacred documents available to the public.
The new book is called “The Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations, Volume 5: Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon.” This is the final volume of the “Revelations and Translations” series. And it is the 23rd of 26 total volumes of the larger Joseph Smith Papers Project, which will be complete in the spring of 2023.
Visit josephsmithpapers.org to purchase a copy of the book. The content — images, transcriptions, introductions and reference material — will be freely available on the website in 18 months.
President Nelson and his counselors in the First Presidency, President Dallin H. Oaks and President Henry B. Eyring, met in the Church Administration Building in downtown Salt Lake City on Tuesday to thank those who helped make the newest volume possible. The gathering included co-editors Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen.
While each volume of the Joseph Smith Papers Project “is of great significance,” President Nelson said, the books in the “Revelations and Translations” series are unique. “These revelations and translations were at the heart of Joseph Smith’s prophetic mission. These texts are vital to the Restoration of the gospel.”
Volume 5, the prophet said, “touches my heart deeply. From it, I more fully appreciate the gift and power of God that enabled Joseph Smith to translate it.”
President Nelson said the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon is one of the most significant and sacred artifacts that the Church possesses.
“Church historians have taken great care — over more than a century — to gather even the most minuscule fragments of manuscript and preserved them from further damage,” he explained. “With this new volume now available, anyone can see what remains of that manuscript and how each little piece fits into the whole. To me, it is inspiring to know that these pages with images of the original Book of Mormon text are now available to all. It is a deeply moving experience to look at these pages and see God’s hand moving His work forward.”
“On behalf of the leadership of the Church and its many members,” President Nelson concluded, “I express our heartiest congratulations and heartfelt gratitude for this newest addition to the Joseph Smith Papers Project.”
The manuscript
The original Book of Mormon manuscript includes the handwriting of several scribes, including Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer and Christian Whitmer, Jensen said.
“I like to call that the dictated copy because that’s the one that was on the table being written on by scribes as Joseph Smith read the words aloud from the Book of Mormon,” Jensen said.
The manuscript remained in Joseph Smith’s possession until 1841, when Latter-day Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, began building a temple (for worship) and the Nauvoo House (to entertain strangers). Joseph placed the original manuscript in the Nauvoo House cornerstone.
Of the nearly 500 pages placed in the Nauvoo House cornerstone, portions of 232 pages survive. The Church now possesses most of those fragments and leaves. Others are in private hands. Their owners graciously allowed those pieces to be photographed and included in this volume.
“[The journey the manuscript has taken is] quite an odyssey,” said Church History Department Director of Publications Matthew McBride. “The manuscript was scattered. And now we’ve been trying to do the work to gather it, just to bring it all back together and make it whole again. That’s what you’ll see as you inspect what we’ve done with the book.”
Multispectral Imaging
Over the years, the Church has produced several sets of photographs of the manuscript. In 1958, the Church photographed the manuscript in black and white before it was conserved and before the manuscript had further deteriorated. In 2017, the Church History Department used multispectral imaging (MSI) to better capture the faded text on the fragments. MSI does this by using ultraviolet, infrared and visible light.
With volume 5, Jensen said, readers can “access the manuscript better than if you would access the original manuscript.” This is because the ink on some of those pages is invisible to the naked eye. “These images are a real asset to this volume.”
Transcriptions
The transcripts and annotation in volume 5 rely upon years of work by Skousen as part of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project. This volume reproduces the original text based on analysis of the manuscript in its present state and multispectral images and historical photographs. The transcript preserves all corrections and revisions, line and page breaks, and the locations of interlinear insertions. Because several scribes penned revisions in this manuscript, the handwriting of each is rendered in a different color to facilitate analysis. The comprehensive and careful presentation gives researchers unparalleled access to the text.
Jensen and Skousen both said the text of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon does not read exactly the way a Latter-day Saint today will find it in the current Book of Mormon published by the Church of Jesus Christ. Whether it be fixing scribal errors, making grammatical corrections or stylistic changes, adding verification and chapter headings, or including other improvements, Church leaders have adjusted the text as needed.
Even so, Skousen said, today’s Book of Mormon is “pretty honest [and] faithful to what that original was. The changes that have been made have not been any really drastic ones. You know, if you look at the Doctrine and Covenants, the Book of Commandments, that transition, several of the sections were rewritten in part, and so forth. You don’t have any of that in the Book of Mormon. There’s just none of that kind of editing.”
Jensen said the minor changes made to the text over time can be seen as a symbol for the Church writ large. “We’re constantly changing. We’re constantly making adjustments based on the needs of the members,” he said. “The Book of Mormon text could be read similarly.”
‘A Spiritual Treasure’
While noting the original manuscript’s obvious historical value, McBride and Jensen each said its spiritual value is unparalleled.
This new volume of the Joseph Smith Papers is the “closest experience that most people will have of being able to hold in their hands this really sacred artifact,” McBride said. “It’s meaningful to me and to other Latter-day Saints as people of faith because this is the text of the book upon which we base our faith and our testimony of Jesus Christ.”
Jensen said the manuscript is “paramount as a spiritual treasure.” Anyone who has experienced the power of the Book of Mormon’s spiritual truths, he said, “can recognize that this [manuscript] is something special.”
And for those who don’t accept the text as scripture, Skousen said it’s important to at least give Joseph credit for his high revelatory volume.
“The Book of Mormon is by far the largest revelation of Joseph Smith,” Skousen said. “The Doctrine and Covenants is not one book — it’s all these separate revelations put together. … Not even the Bible compares. The Bible isn’t a single work, either. … The Book of Mormon is this huge, huge revelation. … It’s an astounding work.”
The project includes 26 planned print volumes that are divided into five series: Documents, Journals, Revelations and Translations, Histories, and Administrative Records. Two additional series — Legal Records and the Financial Records — are online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.
Once a volume is published, it’s available on the Joseph Smith Papers website at www.josephsmithpapers.org about 18 months later, Jensen said.
There are three more volumes planned for the Documents series — two more scheduled to be released later this year and the final volume in 2023.
