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As we saw in chapter 2, time and circumstances have obscured our understanding of the Joseph Smith Translation and the writing on its manuscripts. In this chapter we will examine two significant misunderstandings that have had practical implications for the Church.

Continuing Corrections

The idea that Joseph Smith continued to make changes in the New Translation until his death in 1844 dates to the 1960s. We have already seen that after the original dictation, the Prophet made further edits on the manuscripts to refine and add new insights to the text. Historian Richard Howard incorrectly identified the handwriting of those edits as being Joseph Smith’s, and from that he concluded that the date July 2, 1833, designated only the end of the original dictation, not the end of the work on the manuscripts, and that Joseph Smith continued to labor on the translation for the remainder of his life.[1] Robert Matthews of Brigham Young University, who did much important research on the JST, did not feel qualified to analyze the handwriting and accepted Howard’s conclusions, believing for many years that the revisions were in the Prophet’s hand.[2] He later learned that it was an incorrect assumption. The evidence supports neither the handwriting identification nor the conclusions that were drawn from it.

To be clear, there is no evidence at all that Joseph Smith worked on the New Translation after July 2, 1833. The evidence is in the handwriting. To prove that Joseph Smith continued to make changes in the text after he said it was finished, one would need to have (1) later statements by him saying he was working on the JST, or (2) his own handwriting on the manuscripts with datable clues, or (3) the handwriting of scribes who are known to have worked with him later in his life. We have none of those. The Prophet used several scribes after 1833, and historians know them, their handwriting, and the dates of their service. None of them wrote on the JST manuscripts.

There are some refinements on the manuscripts inserted in the Prophet’s hand after the original dictation, but they are very few: on the final manuscripts his handwriting is found in a revision in Mark 1, in two revisions in John 3, and in three revisions in 2 Peter 3.[3] Nothing in those revisions gives reason to believe that they were made after July 1833. Nor did he use scribes to make changes later in his life, because the rest of the refinements are in the hands of Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams, and neither was scribing for him after the early 1830s.

About twenty revisions made after the original writing are in the hand of Williams, who replaced Rigdon as Joseph Smith’s scribe in July 1832. Williams served until the Prophet hired a new scribe in October 1835 but filled in on a few occasions until the end of that year.[4] He was removed from the First Presidency in 1837 and removed from the Church in 1839 but died back in the Church in 1842.[5]

Refinements in the hand of Sidney Rigdon are far more numerous, totaling about four hundred. There is no evidence that any of them were made after July 1832, when Williams replaced him as scribe. Beginning that month and over the course of a year, the Prophet translated Revelation 12–22, and then Genesis 24:41–Malachi, with Williams writing for him. Refinements in Rigdon’s hand are found in Genesis 1–11, which was transcribed and ready for refinement by April 1831. Those chapters underwent the most extensive review of any part of the JST, with the Prophet making about 170 revisions. Rigdon was also scribe for most of the refinements in the New Testament through Revelation 11, which is where Williams took over. About the same time that the Prophet replaced Rigdon as scribe, he also released him as a counselor in the First Presidency.[6] Rigdon was reinstated in the presidency shortly thereafter, and he remained in the position until the Prophet’s death in 1844. In the last years of Joseph Smith’s life, his confidence in Rigdon declined.

Dating to February 2, 1833, is a notation in the Church’s minute book that is actually more of a Joseph Smith journal entry. It reads, “This day completed the translation and the reviewing of the New Testament and sealed up no more to be broken till it goes to Zion.”[7] The translation of the New Testament had been completed the previous July, so this entry refers to something else.[8] It notes that the “reviewing” was now also finished, which undoubtedly signaled that the New Testament was ready to go to the Church’s printing press in Missouri, with the refinements to its text in place as well as the corrections in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and the insertion of the verse divisions. The Old Testament was not yet finished, but it would be completed in the next five months.

On July 2, 1833, Williams wrote on the last line of the Old Testament manuscript, “Finished on the 2^d day of July 1833.”[9] That same day the Prophet and his counselors, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams—the former scribe and the current scribe—wrote to Church members in Missouri and told them, “We this day finished the translating of the scriptures, for which we returned gratitude to our Heavenly Father.”[10]

Finished

Those notations disprove a second historical misunderstanding about the Joseph Smith Translation—that it was never finished. This has been a common idea among some Latter-day Saints since the late nineteenth century, but again the evidence tells us otherwise. A month after the First Presidency announced the completion of the translation, the Prophet received a revelation in which the Lord instructed Church members to build a printing facility in Kirtland “for the work of the printing of the translation of my scriptures.”[11] They wrote to Church leaders in Missouri, “You will see by these revelations that we have to print the new translation here at Kirtland,” rather than in Independence as previously planned, “for which we will prepare as soon as possible.”[12] Joseph Smith and his counselors considered the Bible revision finished, and from that time forward we have no record of the Prophet talking again of translating the Bible but several references to him expressing his desire to get it printed, which he wanted and intended to do “as soon as possible.” Historical sources show that from then on, his efforts were to have it published as a book,[13] and he and others repeatedly encouraged Church members to donate money for its publication.[14] Those pleas were not successful. Other priorities interfered with its being printed in the Prophet’s lifetime. Printing a Bible would be a large and expensive undertaking, and the Saints had to deal with realities that eventually took precedence, including dealing with persecutions, relocating from Ohio to Missouri to Illinois, and building temples to bless members of the Church.

In a revelation on April 23, 1834, the Lord instructed Church members to secure a copyright for the New Translation,[15] and on a few occasions they may have come close to getting it printed. In a letter dating to June 15, 1835, the Prophet wrote to Church leaders, “We are now commencing to prepare and print the New Translation, together with all the revelations which God has been pleased to give us in these last days.”[16] Of the two projects, the publication of the revelations went first, and it appears that within days of the letter, the Doctrine and Covenants went to press.[17] The New Translation, mentioned first in the letter, was perhaps intended to go to press as soon as the type was available after the printing of the Doctrine and Covenants, or as soon as the services of an outside printer could be secured. Lack of financial resources was probably the reason why that did not happen then. In 1841, after the Saints’ migration from Ohio and expulsion from Missouri, the Lord instructed Joseph Smith’s counselor, William Law, to “publish the new translation of my holy word unto the inhabitants of the earth.”[18] It did not happen then either. In 1842 a new printing of the Book of Mormon came off the press, and in 1844 a new edition of the Doctrine and Covenants was published. There is no proof for Robert Matthews’s suggestion that “the JST would probably have been next,” but it does not seem unlikely.[19]

From the 1840s until the 1960s, Latter-day Saints had no access to the manuscripts of the Prophet’s translation of the Bible. Among those who assisted with it, only Newel K. Whitney, whose contribution was to insert verse breaks, came to the West. He died two years after arriving in Utah. As a result of those circumstances there was limited understanding about the New Translation and limited institutional memory among those who led the Church in the next generation. When the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints published an edition of it in 1867, the Inspired Version, it was a blow to some of the Latter-day Saints in Utah. Here was one of the great revelatory works of Joseph Smith, now published by a church that they considered to be a schismatic organization without authority. They were suspicious of the publication and questioned its accuracy.[20] It was in those years, and as a reaction to the publication of the Inspired Version, that the idea came to the surface that Joseph Smith had not finished the New Translation and did not intend it to be published.[21] Those suspicions and misconceptions prevailed until later research provided more accurate information. In chapter 20 we will learn more about the Inspired Version and how it came to be.

In his Nauvoo sermons, Joseph Smith sometimes restated biblical verses in ways that are different from how the words read in the Bible. It is interesting to note that he did not update the JST with those new insights, suggesting again that he viewed the writing on the New Translation manuscripts to be a completed text.

Notes

[1] Richard P. Howard, Restoration Scriptures: A Study of their Textual Development (Independence, MO: Department of Religious Education, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 1969), 122–26; Restoration Scriptures: A Study of Their Textual Development, rev. and enl. (Independence, MO: Herald, 1995), 89–90, 106–7, 130–31.

[2] This information is based on my conversations with Matthews. Matthews wrote the entry on the Joseph Smith Translation in the Bible Dictionary in the 1981 and 2013 Latter-day Saint editions of the Bible.

[3] NT2, folio 2, page 9; NT2, folio 4, pages 109, 110, 146, 147. Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery made some small revisions on the draft Old Testament manuscript. In addition, in at least two places in the New Testament he restored words that either he had left out while dictating or his scribes had failed to record.

[4] The last journal entry in Williams’s hand dates to December 26, 1835, “Journal, 1835–1836,” p. 89, The Joseph Smith Papers; see also “Frederick G. Williams, statement, undated,” Frederick G. Williams papers, 1834–1842, MS 782, item 16, Church History Library, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org. For Williams’s replacement as scribe, see “Journal, 1835–1836,” p. 10.

[5] “Minute Book 2” (November 7, 1837), pp. 82–83, The Joseph Smith Papers; Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, 4 vols. (Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Co., 1901–1936), 1:51–52.

[6] “Letter to William W. Phelps, 31 July 1832,” p. 4, The Joseph Smith Papers; Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, and his Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), 194–96. The author mistakenly places the incident before, not after, the trip to Missouri. See Reynolds Cahoon diaries, 1831–1832 (July 5, 1832), Church History Library, catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org.

[7] “Minute Book 1” (February 2, 1833), p. 8, The Joseph Smith Papers. The handwriting of this entry is that of Frederick G. Williams.

[8] “We have finished the translation of the New testament,” “Letter to William W. Phelps, 31 July 1832,” p. 5.

[9] OT2, page 119, line 5.

[10] “Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 2 July 1833,” p. 51, The Joseph Smith Papers.

[11] Doctrine and Covenants 94:10.

[12] “Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 6 August 1833,” p. [3], The Joseph Smith Papers.

[13] The Prophet had written earlier, “When it is published it will all go to the world together in a volume by itself.” “Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 21 April 1833,” p. 35, The Joseph Smith Papers. The sentence continues, “and the new Testament and the book of Mormon will be printed together,” likely meaning at the same time. The source of this letter is a retained copy in Letter Book 1, pages 32–36. I suspect that the intent here is “new Translation” rather than “new Testament,” because nowhere else do we have record of an intent to publish the New Testament of the JST separately.

[14] See “Prayer, 11 January 1834,” p. 46, The Joseph Smith Papers; “Recommendation for Samuel Bent and George W. Harris, between circa 17 and circa 28 July 1840,” p. 158, The Joseph Smith Papers; Doctrine and Covenants 124:89; “Books!!!,” Times and Seasons, July 1840, 140; “To the Saints Scattered Abroad,” Times and Seasons, October 1840, 179; March 1, 1842, 715; October 15, 1842, 958.

[15] “This I say that others may not take the blessings away from you which I have conferred upon you.” “Revelation, 23 April 1834 [D&C 104],” pp. [34–35], The Joseph Smith Papers.

[16] “Letter to Church Brethren, 15 June 1835,” p. [1], The Joseph Smith Papers.

[17] Bruce A. Van Orden, We’ll Sing and We’ll Shout: The Life and Times of W. W. Phelps (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018), 158; Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church: Volume One, 1830–1847 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1997), 54–56.

[18] Doctrine and Covenants 124:89.

[19] Robert J. Matthews, “Joseph Smith’s Efforts to Publish His Bible Transla­tion,” Ensign, January 1983, 64. A contemporary second-hand (and unfriendly) witness for the revision’s completion and the intent to publish it is E. D. Howe, who wrote in 1834 that the translation “is now said to be ready for the press, in its amended form, and will be forthcoming, as soon as the state of their finances will permit.” E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, OH: E. D. Howe, 1834), 131.

[20] See Ronald E. Romig, “The New Translation Materials since 1844,” in Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 34–36.

[21] A commonly cited late reference that Joseph Smith wanted to go through the translation again is George Q. Cannon, The Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1888), 142. See also minutes of the Salt Lake City School of the Prophets, June 20, 1868.