Appendix: Proposed Sixth Gathering of the Book of Commandments
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Historical Introduction
The Book of Commandments as it exists today is incomplete. When angry residents of , Missouri, operated by , , and in July 1833, sheets from only the first five gatherings of the book were salvaged. While it is possible—even likely—that typesetting or printing of an additional gathering had begun, no known copy of such a gathering exists.Book collectors, historians, and others have long speculated about the intended contents of the complete Book of Commandments. Widespread access to Revelation Book 1—the primary source text for the Book of Commandments—has recently moved this debate from the realm of conjecture to that of careful analysis, though a definitive reconstruction of the planned contents of the Book of Commandments remains impossible. This appendix presents the items that were likely intended for the sixth gathering of the Book of Commandments. In so doing, this appendix attempts to reconstruct the text that would have been included in that volume if the printing had not been interrupted.Unlike other texts found in The Joseph Smith Papers, this appendix is not a transcript of an existing document; rather it is a conception, based on existing evidence, of the sixth gathering of the Book of Commandments. This appendix includes the conclusion of chapter 65 of the Book of Commandments, twelve additional revelations, and a signed statement affirming the inspired nature of the revelations. These texts were selected for inclusion in this appendix based on available evidence from Revelation Book 1, the physical makeup of the existing portion of the Book of Commandments, analysis of textual patterns found in the Book of Commandments, and other textual and historical sources. This introduction outlines the justification for inclusion of these items.Several important pieces of evidence indicate that further material was slated for inclusion in the Book of Commandments. First, the final revelation printed in the unfinished Book of Commandments (chapter 65) ends abruptly on page 160. The version of Revelation, 11 September 1831 [D&C 64], that appears in Revelation Book 1 contains a take mark after the word “Ephraim,” which is the final word in the fifth gathering of the printed Book of Commandments. But “Ephraim” is not the final word of the revelation text found in Revelation Book 1: about 170 words were left unpublished. Editing marks on the copy of this revelation that appears in Revelation Book 1 show that nine additional verses were marked, indicating an intent to publish the entire revelation. Doing so would have necessitated the printing of a sixth gathering but would not have filled its thirty-two pages. It is possible that the editors could have printed less than a full gathering (as was done for the final gathering in the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants), but Revelation Book 1 contains enough additional marked-up text to fill an entire gathering. Second, a revelation demonstrably intended to serve as an appendix to the Book of Commandments was not in fact printed therein. Editors printed this revelation in the May 1833 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star and promised to include it in the Book of Commandments. That this revelation, which was clearly slated for publication, does not appear in the extant copies of the Book of Commandments is further evidence that printing was not complete.Nine revelations not printed in the Book of Commandments were marked up in Revelation Book 1 in preparation for publication. These nine revelations—dating from late October 1831 to late January 1832—pick up chronologically where the last revelation in the published Book of Commandments (dated 11 September 1831) leaves off. Assuming , , and would have maintained the chronological order of the Book of Commandments for the remainder of the volume, three additional revelations dating from this same time period would likely have been included, though none of these revelations were marked up for publication. It is possible that different copies of the revelations were used instead of Revelation Book 1 to prepare these three texts for publication, because two of the three revelations were published in The Evening and the Morning Star. These three revelations are included herein because they were created during the same time period as the nine marked-up revelations, suggesting they would have been printed along with the other nine.While it is clear, therefore, that some additional revelations were slated for inclusion, it is less clear how many gatherings beyond the current five would have been printed if printing had gone on uninterrupted. The average word count for the extant portion of the Book of Commandments is 270 words per page. At that rate, the aforementioned twelve revelations from Revelation Book 1 would fill approximately thirty printed pages, which would leave enough room in a thirty-two-page gathering to include the “Testimony of the witnesses to the Book of the Lords commandments.” This document, which is copied in Revelation Book 1, is a signed statement testifying of the revelations’ divine origin. It was likely meant to be printed at the back of the Book of Commandments, following a precedent set in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, which included two witness statements on the last two pages of the volume.Beyond the thirteen items identified above and featured herein, it is possible but unlikely that the editors of the Book of Commandments would have included additional revelations from Revelation Book 1 that were dated after 25 January 1832 (the latest date of any of these thirteen items) and before summer 1833 (the latest date that a copy of a new revelation dictated by JS in could have reached before the was ). Revelation Book 1 contains twenty-one items that fall in this time period. It cannot necessarily be assumed that all had reached the Missouri editors before the printing office was destroyed. It is perhaps more plausible to assume a cutoff date of 3 January 1833, the latest date of any revelation published in The Evening and the Morning Star (in the March 1833 issue). With that earlier cutoff date, the number of available additional items is reduced to sixteen. Of those sixteen, eleven can be considered possible candidates. The other five texts dated after 25 January 1832 and on or before 3 January 1833 likely would not have been considered, one because it was marked “Not to be published now” and the other four because they were not published in the 1835 or the 1844 editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, suggesting that the editors of the Book of Commandments probably would not have published them either.No editing marks for the 1833 publication exist in Revelation Book 1 on any revelations dated later than 25 January 1832. Furthermore, the editors appear to have marked up revelations in groups or batches as they were preparing to set type. That the “Appendix” (Revelation, 3 November 1831 [D&C 133]), which was almost certainly intended to be the final revelation in the book, was marked up with the group of items featured herein suggests that the editors had concluded the process of preparing the text and did not plan to include any more revelations. Sources also indicate that printing was drawing to a close.Note on Editorial MethodThe goal of this appendix is to propose and to reconstruct what would have been the sixth and likely final gathering of the Book of Commandments. Unlike other texts found in The Joseph Smith Papers, this appendix is not a transcript of an existing document. The transcripts presented herein take their base texts from Revelation Book 1, the principal source text for the Book of Commandments. In cases where the revelations were marked up in Revelation Book 1 in preparation for the publication of the Book of Commandments, the transcript silently incorporates those corrections, without employing brackets or textual footnotes. Where verse numbers were inserted into Revelation Book 1, verse numbers and the formatting that typically accompanies versification have been silently added to the text. As in the latter part of the Book of Commandments, the first verse of each item is not preceded by a verse number. Readers wishing to see the source texts from which the following transcripts are taken should consult Revelation Book 1Other silent modifications have been made to the texts presented herein. End-of-line hyphens in the original manuscript source are not transcribed herein. Because many end-of-line hyphens have been editorially introduced in the transcripts, a hyphen appearing at the end of a line may or may not be original to the document. Misspellings, grammatical errors, or capitalization irregularities in the handwritten text of Revelation Book 1 have been silently modified, using patterns from the printed Book of Commandments as a precedent when possible. In some cases, changes have been made that would be considered incorrect by modern standards. For instance, the vast majority of instances of “fullness” in the Book of Commandments are spelled “fulness.” As such, the texts in this appendix use the latter spelling. As in the Book of Commandments, the first word of each revelation in these transcripts is set in all caps, though this transcription does not reproduce the drop cap of the first letter of the chapter. Where Revelation Book 1 contains redacted punctuation made in preparation for the 1833 publication, that punctuation is silently incorporated in the transcripts herein, except in a few cases when that redacted punctuation is nonstandard and would impair readability.Four of the items in this appendix contain no editing marks in Revelation Book 1. For these items, versification is based on a close adherence to patterns found in the Book of Commandments, and the editorially supplied verse numbers are enclosed within brackets. Capitalization follows patterns from the Book of Commandments, and the first word of each verse is also capitalized. Punctuation for these four items is taken from the text of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. The text, therefore, follows the heavily punctuated style of the early nineteenth century without any attempt to match exactly the pattern of the Book of Commandments. This policy occasionally leaves commas at the end of verses, which never occurred in the Book of Commandments but is nevertheless left to stand. The transcripts of these four items follow the 1835 punctuation exactly, even though it may occasionally conflict with a punctuation mark in Revelation Book 1.The numbering of chapters has been continued throughout this appendix, and chapter headings have been supplied based on patterns of chapter headings found in the Book of Commandments. Rarely, wording in the revelations is unclear because of grammatical errors, missing words, or other problems. In these cases, other authoritative texts, including The Evening and the Morning Star and the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, have been consulted. In some cases, missing words have been supplied in brackets.
Footnotes
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1
Revelation Book 1 contains three other take marks that correspond to the final words of three gatherings in the Book of Commandments. (Revelation Book 1, p. 39; Revelation Book 1, p. 90; Revelation Book 1, p. 111.)
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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2
Revelation, 11 Sept. 1831, in Revelation Book 1, p. 111 [D&C 64].
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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3
Revelation, 3 Nov. 1831, in Revelation Book 1, pp. 116–121 [D&C 133]. While this revelation appears in the body of Revelation Book 1, it also appears on a separate document that was inserted into Revelation Book 1 at a later date, thereby becoming associated with the book though not physically part of it. This second version of the revelation bears the endorsement “An appendix to Revelation.” In reference to this revelation, the May 1833 issue of The Evening and the Morning Star stated, “Having given, in a previous number, the Preface to the book of Commandments now in press, we give below, the close, or as it has been called, the Appendix.” The revelation was placed as the last revelation in the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants (1835), preceding only three items that were added very late in the publication process. (Appendix 1: Revelation, 3 Nov. 1831, [6], in JSP, MRB:405 [D&C 133]; “Revelations,” The Evening and the Morning Star, May 1833, [1]; Revelation, 3 Nov. 1831, in Doctrine and Covenants 100, 1835 ed. [D&C 133].)
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
JSP, MRB / Jensen, Robin Scott, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds. Manuscript Revelation Books. Facsimile edition. First volume of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman. Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2009.
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God. Compiled by Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams. Kirtland, OH: F. G. Williams, 1835. Also available in Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley Jr., Riley M. Lorimer, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations. Vol. 2 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2011).
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4
Within Revelation Book 1, see Revelation, 29 Oct. 1831, pp. 111–112 [D&C 66]; Revelation, 1 Nov. 1831–A, pp. 113–114 [D&C 68]; Revelation, 2 Nov. 1831, pp. 114–115 [D&C 67]; Revelation, 3 Nov. 1831, pp. 116–121 [D&C 133]; Revelation, 11 Nov. 1831–A, p. 122 [D&C 69]; Revelation, 11 Nov. 1831–B, pp. 122–123 [D&C 107 (partial)]; Revelation, 12 Nov. 1831, pp. 124–125 [D&C 70]; Revelation, 1 Dec. 1831, p. 134 [D&C 71]; and Revelation, 25 Jan. 1832, pp. 129–132 [D&C 75].
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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5
Revelation, 30 Oct. 1831, in “Revelations,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Sept. 1832, [2] [D&C 65]; Revelation, 4 Dec. 1831, in “A Revelation Given December 4, 1831,” The Evening and the Morning Star, Dec. 1832, [5]–[6] [D&C 72].
The Evening and the Morning Star. Independence, MO, June 1832–July 1833; Kirtland, OH, Dec. 1833–Sept. 1834.
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6
Testimony, ca. 1 Nov. 1831, in Revelation Book 1, p. 121.
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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7
Within Revelation Book 1, see Vision, 16 Feb. 1832, pp. 135–139 [D&C 76]; Revelation, 1 Mar. 1832, pp. 145–146 [D&C 78]; Revelation, 7 Mar. 1832, p. 147 [D&C 80]; Revelation, 12 Mar. 1832, p. 147 [D&C 79]; Revelation, 15 Mar. 1832, pp. 139–140 [D&C 81]; Revelation, 30 Apr. 1832, p. 132 [D&C 83]; Revelation, 29 Aug. 1832, p. 148 [D&C 99]; Revelation, 22 and 23 Sept. 1832, pp. 149–156 [D&C 84]; Revelation, 6 Dec. 1832, p. 177 [D&C 86]; Revelation, 27 and 28 Dec. 1832, pp. 158–166 [D&C 88:1– 126]; and Revelation, 3 Jan. 1833, pp. 166–167 [D&C 88:127–141].
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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8
Revelation, 26 Apr. 1832, in Revelation Book 1, pp. 128–129 [D&C 82].
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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9
Within Revelation Book 1, see Answers to questions, ca. Mar. 1832, pp. 141–144 [D&C 77]; Sample of pure language, ca. Mar. 1832, p. 144; Revelation, 20 Mar. 1832, p. 148; and Revelation, 25 Dec. 1832, p. 157 [D&C 87].
Revelation Book 1 / “A Book of Commandments and Revelations of the Lord Given to Joseph the Seer and Others by the Inspiration of God and Gift and Power of the Holy Ghost Which Beareth Re[c]ord of the Father and Son and Holy Ghost Which Is One God Infinite and Eternal World without End Amen,” 1831–1835. CHL.
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10
William W. Phelps recalled that the book was “nearly printed” at the time printing was violently interrupted. In a letter of 25 June 1833, JS and other Kirtland leaders gave directions about binding the book, suggesting that the book’s release was close at hand: “First as respects getting the book of Commandments bound we think it is not necessary they will be sold as well without binding and there is no book binder to be had as we know off nor is there materials to be had for binding without keeping the books too long from circulation.” A week later, a second letter from Kirtland provided explicit instructions on where to ship copies of the Book of Commandments, again suggesting that completion of the volume was imminent. (Phelps, “Short History,” [3]; JS et al., Kirtland, OH, to Edward Partridge et al., Independence, MO, 25 June 1833, JS Collection, CHL; Sidney Rigdon et al., Kirtland, OH, to “Brethren,” [Independence, MO], 2 July 1833, in JS Letterbook 1, pp. 51–54.)
Phelps, William W. “A Short History of W. W. Phelps’ Stay in Missouri,” 1864. Information concerning Persons Driven from Jackson County, Missouri in 1833, 1863–1868. CHL. MS 6019, fd. 7.
Smith, Joseph. Collection, 1827–1846. CHL. MS 155.
JS Letterbook 1 / Smith, Joseph. “Letter Book A,” 1832–1835. Joseph Smith Collection. CHL. MS 155, box 2, fd. 1.
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1
Sidney Rigdon | Lyman Wight | |
Orson Hyde | John Murdock | |
William E. McLellin | Calvin Beebe | |
Luke Johnson | Zebedee Coltrin | |
Lyman Johnson | Joshua Fairchild | |
Reynolds Cahoon | Peter Dustin | |
John Corrill | Newel Knight | |
Parley Pratt | Levi Hancock | |
Harvey Whitlock | Thomas B. Marsh |