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S2E24 · Unpublished Revelations of Joseph Smith Part 1
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Standard of Truth · Season 2 · Episode 24 · 1:06:59

Unpublished Revelations of Joseph Smith Part 1

One revelation that never made it into the Doctrine and Covenants told Joseph's associates to sell the Book of Mormon copyright in Canada, and they turned back because York was too far to go in winter.

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The question ·

What are some of the revelations Joseph Smith received that never made it into the Doctrine and Covenants, and why weren't they included?

Gerrit

After a funny email from Eric about Bleeding Kansas, Richard and Gerrit turn to revelations Joseph Smith received that were never canonized. Gerrit explains that the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants was only selected revelations, that canonizing makes revelation easier to find without making the rest untrue, and that sections like D&C 137 and 138 were only added in 1981. He reads a January 1838 revelation on whether a branch can become a stake without the First Presidency, and an 1843 revelation sending John E. Page to Washington with counsel to let his words be soft. The episode ends with the earliest uncanonized revelation, about securing the Book of Mormon copyright and selling it in Canada, set against Abner Cole's Sunday pirating of the book.

Who comes upJoseph SmithJohn E. PageWillard RichardsWilford WoodruffMartin HarrisAbner ColeEgbert B. GrandinOliver CowderyHyrum SmithJoseph KnightJoseph F. Smith
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Eric wanted the book read

Richard reads Eric's email hoping for a word-for-word reading instead of the Compromise of 1850.

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Intro Welcome to the Standard of Truth Podcast, hosted by historian, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church and grow it by way of visions, manifestations and miracles.
Gerrit See you in the next video. Thanks for!
Intro Hi, welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, and I'm joined by my friend, Professor Richard LeDuc.
Gerrit Hello, Gerrit.
Intro In this week's podcast, we're gonna talk about some of the uncannonized revelations from the Prophet Joseph Smith. Before we do, we love receiving emails from listeners to the podcast, and so I wanted to read one message that we received.
Gerrit I thought this was very good.
Intro Now, this is gonna be coming, as you know, we had Zion part one through 38. We interrupted it with two episodes on the Banner of Heaven, and so this is referencing that, even though this podcast now is coming after the 38 part.
Gerrit Yeah, at this point, I thought people were wondering what podcast they turned into.
Intro That's right, that's right. So here's the message.
Gerrit This is from a listener, Eric.
Intro I had hoped your podcast episode, titled Under the Banner of Heaven, would be you simply reading word for word from the prize-winning book. Imagine my disappointment when instead we got an hour of The Compromise of 1850 and Bleeding Kansas. Thank you, Eric. Keep them coming. That was great.
Gerrit We like feedback.
Intro We do, we do. And you did forget the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which.
Gerrit Which was the secret word of the day. So that's anyone who says Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, they win the prize, yes, and balloons fall and. That is, that is right.
Intro It was very, it was a very funny message, Eric. We really did appreciate that.
Gerrit And we believe that that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo will replace townships and being the new. It's, I don't know. Townships was terrible. I feel like townships is where we reached our nadir. It is where, it is where we, where I talked about a topic that most of the listeners didn't care about, and then somehow cared about it less. The more I talked about it. So it was the absolute opposite of what we're trying to do. We want to help people have an interest in history. I feel like in some ways, I'm making people want to become math majors.
Intro Well, so we are gonna try and pull them back from the brink on this one. So this will be an interesting topic for us to discuss. Some of the non-canonized revelations received from the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Gerrit Right, so we talked about this when we talked about the Doctrine and Covenants and how it was formed, that, like I always assumed, that what was in the Doctrine and Covenants was every single revelation Joseph Smith received. I mean, why wouldn't it be? This was never the assumption of early church members. And there were several reasons why that wasn't the assumption. First of all, the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, when it was published, specifically said that it was selected revelations. It was some of the revelations of Joseph Smith that were published. So if you had a copy of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, you would well know that Joseph received other revelations that were not selected for inclusion. And we know very little about the process whereby the committee, with Joseph's approval, is deciding what revelations to include or not include. But there's quite a few that don't make it in for one reason or another.
Gerrit And I say one reason or another, but I actually don't know the reason. So maybe they just don't make it in because they skipped that page for all I know. But the reality is that Joseph has received dozens of revelations that are recorded revelations that are in various formats. They're in somewhere in his journal, some are in the letters, some are in the manuscript revelation book. It just, they weren't selected for publication. So I thought it might be, I don't know, fun, interesting, townshipy to at least explore what some of those are to give you an idea of what some of them might be. So for instance, here's a revelation that was received January 12th, 1838, January 12th, 1838. Now, Joseph actually, I could actually read four revelations from this time period. This is the time period in which things have gotten terrible in Kirtland, where you have mass apostasy surrounding the Kirtland Safety Society.
Gerrit You have all kinds of threats against Joseph and other leaders of the church. You have people setting up their own church. You have all kinds of difficulties going on. And in the midst of that, Joseph receives a series of revelations, one of which is going to command the saints to leave Kirtland, which I'll cover that one, but I thought I'd cover this one first. I mean, I want to lead up into the larger township. This is Kirtland, January 12th, 1838. And this is by way of a question and answer. So apparently the question was asked, can any branch of the Church of the Latter-day Saints be considered a stake of Zion until they have acknowledged the authority of the First Presidency by a vote of said church? So apparently the question is, there's a whole bunch of members in Benson, Vermont.
Gerrit There's not anymore at this time, but let's just say, I mean, if you're throwing out metropolises where there might be thousands of members, you always pick a city in Vermont because you know that there's just, the odds are, right? That could you have a situation where a bunch of people convert and they are already a stake of the church without actually being organized by the church? The response in the Revelation is, How then? You know, how then does it become a stake? The answer. No stake shall be appointed except by the First Presidency, and this presidency be acknowledged by the voice of the same. Otherwise, it shall not be counted as a stake of Zion. So interestingly, one of the questions they have is, can a group of believers get together and form their own stake of the church?
Gerrit This might sound odd to a Latter-day Saint of the 21st century because, A, the last thing you're thinking about is, I'd really just like to get together a bunch of people and form another ward. But also this idea that it wouldn't come from the church in the organization. But in the 19th century, there are multiple Christian churches that would form themselves first and then appeal to admission to the larger denominational structure. So for example, it might be a bunch of Baptists are converted by Baptist missionaries in some rural location. And then they form their own local Baptist church and then they appeal to be admitted to the Northern Baptist Convention, if you're close enough to the Civil War or whatever. So you can see why it's a weird question to us, but it's actually not a weird question to them.
Gerrit Can we essentially create our own congregations and then with the congregation already created, have the church say, oh yeah, that's a stake? Well, the answer we get right, no stakes shall be appointed except by the First Presidency and this presidency be acknowledged by the voice of the same. Otherwise it should not be counted as a stake of Zion and again, except it be dedicated by this presidency, it cannot be acknowledged as a stake of Zion. For under this end, I've appointed them in laying the foundation of and establishing my kingdom. So the stakes of the church, now this is early because this is before you have dozens and dozens of stakes. Coming out of the Illinois period, you're going to start having more of them, but there are very few stakes in the church. And one of the things they don't know is, well, as membership grows in certain places, can people just essentially set up their own stake and then write, say, hey, there's a bunch of us and now we're a stake.
Gerrit And this is also before there are wards. It's kind of counterintuitive that you would think that wards actually come before stakes, that you'd have wards and then you divide them up by larger groupings. It actually works the other way around. Stakes of Zion are in reference in the early 1830s, but the ward terminology doesn't really come about until Nauvoo is divided as a city by ward, which is how the rest of the world knows wards anyway, right, or if they're from New Orleans, yeah. The idea of the way that you divide up a municipality by not only population, but also by geography, like, you know, the lower ninth ward goes down to this street or whatever. So it is true that during this period, many of the things that we would call stakes, right, might in later times be called wards. I mean, essentially, they're congregations off on their own.
Gerrit And they're still developing the way that these things are created. But here you have this as a revelation from God. If you might wonder why it is that they create stakes at the level of the First Presidency in the church, it's not just because they decided to do that. This has actually been in place since a revelation that was received in 1838, that it is the First Presidency that's going to determine the creation of a stake. And it's not the other way around. It's not the believers getting together and saying, you know what, we elected Bill our stake president, and he seems like a nice guy. That's not what's going on. Unfortunately for all the stake presidents listening, we were hoping that that would be the case.
Intro Just by way of brief update, you mentioned Benson, Vermont. Benson, Vermont is in the Rutland branch of the Montpelier Stake, by the way.
Gerrit I know that people were waiting to know. So it's part of a branch that's not there. Benson is. So there's not even a branch in Benson.
Intro Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And I will say that the branch president does have an Idaho prefix for his phone number. And being that we're both from Idaho, we.
Gerrit Right, so we know what that is. We're not gonna tell you. We're hoping that Google doesn't exist where you live. And the branch president's phone number is 208. Yeah, and he can be reached. I worry about some blowback from our Benson, Vermont listeners. You know, it's willing to take it.
Intro If they were so smart, they'd start their own podcast.
Gerrit Yeah, that's our new go-to. But I pick Benson, Vermont because there was a huge host of Latter-day Saints that were converted there in 1833, and then they eventually do move to Simon. They have left, yes. Yes, essentially any Latter-day Saint. We know there's one. We know there's Gina, and that's it. The one Latter-day Saint is there. So here's an example of something that isn't in the published revelations. It's absolutely a revelation. It's even, thus saith the Lord. It is something that is recorded by one of Joseph's scribes. It's in the revelations collection. There is no, I think sometimes our knee-jerk reaction when something isn't in the scriptures is just simply, you're worried that someone's gonna white horse prophecy you. You know what I mean? That they're gonna say, oh yeah, here's this secret special revelation.
Gerrit You don't know about that trumps anything in the scriptures. That's not what I'm saying. But at the same time, we should not reject revelation that the Prophet Joseph Smith received and teachings that he gave simply because they weren't selected to be published. So now you have said in previous podcasts, this idea of saints coming to Joseph and asking for a revelation, are there aspects of that that made their way in the Doctrine and Covenants because they were, well, yeah, this was for a specific person, but there was grander teachings in this, or there were lots of things that people, he's receiving going to the Lord in prayer or just maybe in his role as a prophet giving. I think that one of the more unfortunate aspects of the canonization of the revelations is we don't know a whole lot surrounding the discussions of why something, I mean, so any answer I give would essentially be a speculation.
Gerrit Well, they probably didn't include this because it was only to David Whitmer. Well, there's several other revelations that are only to David Whitmer, right? So I mean, my hunch is that there's not the kind of rubric that we're taking a college class where it's like, okay, we're going to take four of these and five of these and make sure that we've got at least one reference to this. I think that they are worried about space, I would guess. I think they are worried about application because they specifically say in their title that the ones they selected, they're carefully selected from the revelations. But that's not the same thing as saying the revelations we didn't pick aren't from God. And I think that that's kind of the black and white way that we sometimes look at things that are in the scriptures or things that aren't when we're talking about past prophets.
Gerrit So I mean, no Latter-day Saint today is going to question whether, well, okay, let me. No Latter-day Saint today? Okay, yeah, let me just walk that back. Few Latter-day, well, half, some, I don't know what, I don't know what I should preface this with, but a Latter-day Saint today is less likely, perhaps, I don't even think there's a way I can phrase this that will come out, okay. I would hope, I would hope that an active Latter-day Saint today, if President Nelson says, you know, it's the will of the Lord that we do X, that an active Latter-day Saint would respond by saying, that's the word of the Lord to me, right. I would hope that they wouldn't say, well, until that's canonized, I'm not doing anything. I don't care what he says, right. Now, right now, all of you are thinking, oh, I know that guy, he's in my elders quorum presidency.
Gerrit The reality is that at least that's what we would expect, is that when prophets speak, the expectation of many believing members is that people should follow it. Canonizing a revelation, of course, makes it far more readily accessible, and certainly then it's going to be quoted much more often, and it certainly, in many cases, obviously does have a wider applicability. But what's also important to remember is that we have added things to our canonization over time. As much as you love Doctrine and Covenants, Section 137, which talks about the fact that every single person is going to have a chance at the celestial kingdom, not just the lucky few who happened to be born when they had a chance to be baptized into the, I mean, that's a beautiful revelation. It's powerful. It helps us understand the expansive nature of salvation after this life, and that God isn't playing Calvinist arbitrary favorites of deciding, oh, oh, you, you were born, oh, sorry, you know, welcome to hell population, you or even celestial kingdom, that everyone has an opportunity to be saved in the celestial kingdom.
Gerrit That is a beautiful doctrine, but it wasn't canonized until 1981. So let me ask this question. Was that still true in 1980? Was the doctrine, was the revelation that Joseph Smith received, was that truth from God in 1980? And being received in the 1830s? 1836. But was it still true even if it wasn't canonized?
Intro You would argue that it was always true.
Gerrit Exactly, because it's an eternal truth that Joseph had revealed to him. So, I think it's hard, it's difficult, because other things become a little bit more obscure, right? I mean, we have some sermons of Joseph Smith that are canonized in our scriptures. Some letters that Joseph writes to the church. I mean, look, if I had my druthers, the reason why they can't ever put a Joseph Smith Papers historian in charge of what gets into the scriptures is you'd have a Doctrine and Covenants that was bigger than the Webster's Dictionary. Just, you know, I mean, like, oh, on page 9413, Joseph said this in the minutes of the church, I object, and there it is, and that's that, you know, that's now scripture. I mean, we need to know that. That's the problem. I mean, we're a little too close to the sources, right? But it is this interesting concept of, I think that the scriptures are always a safe place for us.
Gerrit And so that's why the prophets are always counseling us to study them. Those are the ones that God has, those are the teachings that God has specifically asked us to read and to study. But at the same time, we also know that there are other truths that are outside of them. People knew about Doctrine and Covenants, Section 137, long before it was canonized. It was in Joseph Smith's Journal. People were quoting it in general conference for decades before it was canonized. So I think we have, I think everyone who's under the age of 50 has a tendency to think of the Doctrine and Covenants as a completed book that will never be added to, right? We're basically- The way that most people think the Bible. Yeah, we're Baptists on our mission. You know, if any man add to or take away from the words of this book, let him be accursed. But if you were to talk to, say, your grandparents' generation, they would all very well remember that Doctrine and Covenants Section 137 and Doctrine and Covenants Section 138 were added to the scriptures.
Gerrit They grew up with scriptures that didn't have them in there. The vision that Joseph F. Smith has, he has it in 1918. Is that vision not true for the next 70 years because they don't put it into the scriptures till 1981? Well, I think that that's part of the thought process I'm hoping our listeners are going through. Or at this point, they're already asleep. That's part of the cool thing of studying the various teachings of the early prophets is you can see sometimes not just things that are things that they taught, but things that they deliver in the form of revelation like this.
Intro Well, so I remember most of my elders quorum time from when I turned 19 on up that all we studied was the teachings of the prophets from Brigham Young all the way through all the prophets. And very few, if any of those things were canonized, they were all just the teachings of the prophets.
Gerrit Right, from various sermons they'd given, letters they'd written, statements they'd made. And I think that that's, I think everyone feels comfortable with that. I just think that people feel less comfortable when we get into the realm of revelation because we tend to think of the word revelation as that is much, I mean, how often have you heard people try to dissect whether what the church is teaching is quote unquote doctrine or not, right? And everyone has a different definition of what that means. So then the argument doesn't get settled at all because they're like, no, I think it's doctrine when they have a completely different definition of what they think it even means.
Intro So this is actually an interesting discussion you have with your students at the beginning of every semester, right?
Gerrit When you talk about what doctrine, maybe it's not every semester, but. I mean. Maybe it's not interesting. Maybe there are some semesters where I decide, you know what, you don't get to know that. You don't get to know a doctrine. I'm keeping that for me. That's right.
Intro No, but I think it's an interesting thing is you define it to your class, because it helps them to kind of understand where that is.
Gerrit Maybe you don't want to go that way. Well, I mean, that would be almost a different route entirely, but along the lines of, by definition of what the church is teaching, right? That's what doctrine is by definition, by dictionary definition. Collection of teachings, what's being taught. That's of course going to change over time, especially in a church where you believe in continuing revelation. So if you literally believe that God will reveal many great and important things under the children of men, then you also have to believe that there are things that will be taught that haven't been taught before. But by definition, you have to believe it. And yet, as we've said before, oftentimes the moment that happens, we say, no, no, I don't see that anywhere. I know, that's the whole point of having a prophet. That's why he's there is so that when there are things that God wants to reveal, we have a place for him. I mean, this is a great example that we're talking about. They had organized the stakes that they'd organized directly before, but it's not an outlandish question for people living somewhere else to say, can we just like organize our own church the same way we could if we were congregationalists?
Gerrit And the response is, no, this is going to be operated by the First Presidency, right? It's a great answer, great question, but one that isn't just Joseph saying, you know what, thought about it, talked to old Sid, and he said, first of all, repent your sinner. Second of all, okay. I mean, instead, the way that it's being delivered is different. It is not, you know, we acquiesce to your feelings on the matter, right? Which is what Joseph will say sometimes. Instead, it's the voice of the Lord to us was. I mean, that's different. It's a direct answer to the question that they're asking. So there's one example. Do you want to go through some more? I would love to go through them. Do the listeners? Oh, sorry.
Intro Eric just texted me. He wants more.
Gerrit But Eric's text curiously says, what about the Kansas-Nebraska Act? I don't even know what that has to do with what we're doing now, and how Eric got a live feed into the studio. But studio. It's an upstairs bedroom with a folding table. We should probably put a picture on it and let everybody know. I mean, when we say low budget, we're not just saying that. I mean. It's a defense to low budget. I feel like everyone listening already knows it's low budget. Yeah, they were listening. They know. They already know. We've got some low budget hosts. I wouldn't pay those guys anything. Well, you're lucky. Well, your wish is about to be fulfilled. At any rate, here's another one. Again, kind of obscure, but I think many people might not have heard this because it comes in another form. I thought I'd share it. Well, that one was recorded into the collection of Revelations, Recorder and Loose Leaf, and it made its way into the Revelation collection.
Gerrit Here is an example of a Revelation that's recorded in a letter that's sent to one of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. One of the Quorums. Now, one of the members of the Quorum. How many Quorums were there? So many Quorums. One of the questions that we'll need to get a little bit more clarity on. Gerrit, you said one of the Quorums of the Twelve Apostles. I just received a text from my stake president saying we need to meet. So that's, we need to meet now. Interesting. So there's, I didn't know that that's how you spell apostasy, but okay. No, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder John E. Page. So John Page is currently, he's serving a mission in, well, he's in Boston, but he's been out in Pennsylvania and in Pittsburgh. In fact, while he was there, he was writing a newspaper that, for those of you who like it when, people throw down with your religion, if you're the type of person who loves to hear someone just absolutely defend the gospel and no holds barred against the people who are on the other side of things, you're probably not listening to this podcast, but if you are one of those people, you would have loved Johnny Page's, his publication.
Gerrit It was aggressive in- My wife loves it. I don't know if she's read it yet, but if she has, I mean, maybe we'll do a podcast on it.
Intro Yeah, that'd be great.
Gerrit That's a great idea.
Intro I will say one of my favorite jokes that my dad does not appreciate, my dad served his mission in Boston. And I said that when he served, it was the Western States mission, which he did.
Gerrit That is hilarious, actually. He didn't think it was as funny as I did. Yeah, well, I mean, he probably lost his sense of humor serving in Boston. He loved it, he loved it. Yeah, it was great. Well, so there were missionaries who came before your dad. Now, this is gonna come across to him as a shock. He's gonna be like, you have got to be kidding. They told me I opened that area. Yeah, well, John Page was already serving in Boston. Like I said, he'd been in Pittsburgh for about a year, publishing this church publication, and then he'd been working in Boston where he seems to have been having success. Well, a letter is written to him from Joseph Smith and the Quorum of the Twelve, and it's a response to a letter that Elder Page had sent. This is November 25th, 1843. They talk about how, oh, we lost your letter, we can't find it right now.
Gerrit It's pretty funny, actually. They're like, we'd like to refer to the date on your letter, but we misplaced it. But remember, but they say, but the subject is fresh. And the letter was read in the Council of Presidents. Joseph, oh, in the Council of Presidents, Joseph Hyrum and the Twelve. So they get Page's letter about his experiences teaching in Boston. And they read it, which they often do. This is how letters are often read. You read them out loud to a group of people because you can't just post it on your blog, right? And you're not going to get it published anytime soon. So if there's a letter that's giving news, the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor both do a really good job of this, of trying to publish some of these letters that come in. From missionaries abroad, because otherwise, you don't know what's going on in bed for sure. How could you know? There's not a news service just for Latter-day Saints. They hadn't invented BYU TV or the church news yet, right? So they don't have a way.
Gerrit So they read this letter in the Council of President Joseph of Hyrum and as well as the Quorum of the Twelve. And the response is this, where the word of the Lord came to Joseph the Seer. So notice the language of that. It's not just where we contemplated that perhaps you should. Now, they are trying to make it very clear that this is not just hey, the Council got together and decided to do something. Now look, in the Quorum of the Twelve, if the Council gets together and decides to do something, we should still be following that, okay? Let me just get that right out there, right? Sometimes people are like, did they say the sayeth the Lord? When people say that, it's really weird because there are actually very few revelations that actually do use that phraseology. So I don't know. I think that they're looking for a why I don't have to follow this commandment card, especially if it's the Word of Wisdom.
Intro Is the term seer also, is that thrown when they want a little more gravitas to a particular thing or is that?
Gerrit It's interesting. I've actually, I don't even know if I want to, I feel like if I tell this story, you're going to lose respect for me. Too late. Okay, well. You might as well tell it. Yeah, we're on the absolute value, absolute value, absolute value of zero. What about our listeners? There's got to be someone out there? Possibly, but. Maybe Eric already is mad. Okay, well, actually it's interesting, how language changes over the course of time and you can actually track in Wilford Woodruff's journal when he starts referring to Joseph in every instance almost Joseph the Seer said, Joseph the Seer, Joseph the Seer. And it's this period in late 41 all the way up through 44 where. When he's just, literally everything he says, he's just bringing it. And I think it's because Joseph is just reviewing so much that they just, you know. But so here you have, you know, as they're writing this, this letter there employing that. Now this is not being written by Joseph.
Gerrit This is Willard Richards who's writing it, but he's the secretary, you know, for the 12th. He puts it down all of his guns. Yeah, he put down all of the guns. So he's been loading powder and ball for months already, just prepping for his role in the Carthage Conspiracy. But he put it down long enough to write this letter, obviously on behalf of Joseph and the 12th. But word of the Lord came to Joseph the Seer. Thus, and then the quote of what this revelation is, let my servant Johnny Page take his departure speedily, and that's actually underlined in the original, from the city of Boston and go directly to the city of Washington and labor diligently in proclaiming my gospel to the inhabitants thereof. And if he is humble and faithful, lo, I will be with him and will give him the heart of the people that he may do them good and build up a church unto my name in that city.
Gerrit And then the letter is actually going to continue, but the quote marks in the letter end right there. This is what the word of the Lord was. This is the revelation to Joseph. They're still going to add more to this, because we can continue on the letter. Now Brother Page, if you wish to follow counsel and to do the will of the Lord, as we believe you desire to do, call the church at Boston together without delay and read this letter to them, calling upon them to assist you in your mission and go thy way speedily to the place which is appointed unto you by the voice of the Lord. You can see what I'm saying about the fact that this is not a published, I mean, not a canonized revelation. I mean, it's published now that it's in the Joseph Smith Papers, but it's not a canonized revelation of Joseph Smith. But there is no doubt that Page's calling is being received by revelation.
Gerrit There's no doubt among the people who are writing the letter, among the Quorum of the Twelve, that this is a revelation from God. And in fact, after they receive it, the point or the remainder of their letter is, Elder Page, this was a revelation from God, and you better do it. And they actually tell him to use the revelation to read it to the people, the saints in Boston, so that they can help you raise money to take off and go to Washington. That's very cool. Yeah, so it is being received as a revelation, it's being treated as a revelation, it's being read to people, read to members of the church in the congregations in the Boston area, the ones before your dad converted them, that this is a revelation from God. So that it was a revelation really is not based upon whether or not it was ever included in the Doctrine and Covenants, or whether or not it ever will be included in the Doctrine and Covenants. If they were to add it to the Doctrine and Covenants tomorrow, I mean, I'd be all kinds of excited, because again, if it's a Joseph Smith revelation, I'm like, yeah, let's get that in the scriptures.
Gerrit It would not be a surprise to me at all, because this is clearly a revelation from Joseph, treated as a revelation and acted upon as a revelation. When John Page went to Washington, he went not just because he was called. He went because it was a revelation. It actually makes me wonder if the reason why the Lord decided he needed to receive this much more powerful revelation, or at least more direct, was that if you recall, Johnny Page was actually, he was supposed to travel with Orson Hyde to the Holy Land on that, you know, I was about to say epic adventure, but you know, to go dedicate Palestine, and Page doesn't actually go with him. And so it makes me wonder if, you know, maybe the Lord here is saying, you know, John, you have a history of kind of not doing what it is that you've been asked to do. And maybe that's the reason for the more forceful.
Gerrit Because it's interesting, because the follow up question is, well, so how does it go in Washington? Yeah. And you know, I don't think we get to know fully because that mission is going to be cut pretty short. I mean, this is November of 1843. Oh. And so we do know that he goes. So there's at least that. And that they do raise the money, whatever that amount of money is, through these Boston Saints, who they heed the Revelation. So it demonstrates that Latter-day Saints in the 19th century are not asking the question of, and wait a minute, is this, is that in the Scriptures? Because I'm not following that if it's not, right? When they know a Revelation comes from Joseph, so obviously not everybody. That's why there's apostates. But they respond knowing that it's a Revelation, whether it's a canonized Revelation or not.
Gerrit Interesting part of the information they give him is, let your words be soft unto the people. Now again, you might not know why they are giving that counsel until we eventually do a podcast, but never actually do a podcast on the publication that he was printing in Pittsburgh, because soft words is not what his forte is. He spends every issue of that paper ripping to shreds, primarily like standard Trinitarian doctrine. He lambasts the idea of a god without body parts or passions. I mean, spends pages on it. And in not the most kumbaya sort of a way either. He didn't read How to Win Friends and Influence People. And I think they're trying to tell him that here. This is not part of the revelation. This is just part of the letter accompanying it.
Gerrit Let your words be soft on the people, but full of the spirit and the power of the Holy Ghost. And then underlined for emphasis, do not challenge the sex for debate, but treat them as brethren and friends. Not a beautiful sentiment of this letter that comes from Joseph Smith in the Quorum of the Twelve. But this also goes to show an example. So here's a revelation. Here's some additional teaching on top of that revelation.
Intro My son's getting ready to go on his mission. Boy, that's some good counsel for him.
Gerrit It's a pretty, do not challenge the sex for debate, but treat them as brethren and friends. Now, having studied Joseph like I have, I mean, that is about the most Joseph Smith thing. He certainly is willing to stand up for what he believes. But he really, especially the closer he gets to the end of his life, he really wants people to love people that aren't members of the church. He wants membership to not be the deciding reason of whether or not you love someone, whether or not they're your friend. And you see that here. So I like this letter because you have both the word of the Lord that they've encapsulated in quotes, and then you also have the words of the prophet in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, which is still pretty important counsel. You have both of those things. Shall we do another?
Intro Yeah, absolutely.
Gerrit Well, maybe I'll do the earliest Uncanonized Revelation. So the earliest recorded revelation we have that's recorded, written down as a revelation, but that doesn't get selected for publication in the Doctrine and Covenants. This one is going to sound less exciting. I think when I first brought it up, it got the veto, but just on name alone.
Intro Wow, in fairness, when you said it, you're like, hey, I said, what? So what's another one that we could possibly do? And then you said...
Gerrit I said, well, there's the one on the Canadian copyright, but that's... Oh, Canadian copyright, oh. Yeah, yeah. I think I said the word Canada, and Richard shut down immediately.
Intro I love Canada.
Gerrit Well, that's what you say just because of your ancestry there, but we know, we know that you, the Quebecois in you is strong. But this is a revelation that Joseph Smith receives at some point, we assume, in early 1830. We don't know exactly when. So now think about this. It's probably between January and March. The Church isn't founded until April of 1830. So this is a revelation that's received prior to the organization of the Church. And it is during the same time period that they are still trying to secure the funding that they need to both run the Church and to defray the costs of the printing of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is already being printed. Martin Harris has already, you know, signed the farm over for that. But there is an expectation that Harris is going to be able to make his money back, that it's more of an investment than it is a, you know, simply a sacrifice with never getting it back.
Gerrit I mean, it's obviously a huge sacrifice. But the idea is as they sell copies of the Book of Mormon, he will slowly be repaid over time.
Intro And he says that he...
Gerrit Later in life says that he was repaid all of the money that he gave. I don't know if he's just saying that, if he's being kind at that point in his life. One of the things that there's a real dearth of in these early documents is... Just dearth.
Intro It made me laugh.
Gerrit Will you give me a better word to use?
Intro No, dearth is it.
Gerrit No, no, you didn't like the word. Would you prefer if I used the word paucity? Yeah, paucity is better. There's a real paucity in that... No, there's a real lack, which is probably the better word. There's of financial documents, especially when it's related to personal finances like that. So you'll occasionally get those in journals and in a letter, but there's no way to verify how many copies of the Book of Mormon were sold, let alone how much of that money was remunerated to Harris. I'm sorry, just every time, it makes me smile. It's great. Because I used the word remunerated? Yeah, that was great. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. This is being a very judgmental. Our new podcast is going to be called Richard LeDuc Isn't Embarrassing. And I won't even be on it. It'll just be Richard talking. And no one will listen to it. You know the kind of stuff that Gerrit says? I don't say that. We obviously kid because we're best friends.
Gerrit They received this revelation. And again, this is recorded in the Manuscript Revelation Book. So literally the same book that they take most of the revelations out of that they put into the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants. In that same book is this revelation. It's labeled as Commandment Number 23. It even has a headline to it that's written in there by John Whitmer when he copies it in. A revelation given to Joseph, Oliver, Hyrum, Hyrum spelled wrong, Josiah and Joseph Knight. Given at Manchester, Ontario County, New York. Even the title of the revelation is saying that it was a revelation. It's copied into the revelation book. There is no difference between this revelation and the dozens of other revelations that were selected for publication. That does open up the question of, well, why did they decide not to include this one?
Gerrit Maybe it is because of the content, because what's going on is they are trying to find ways to both secure the copyright on what they are publishing, and also so that they can try to defray the cost. Again, for a Latter-day Saint today, you've never thought of charging your friends for a copy of the Book of Mormon, although it seems like... I've thought about it. Yeah, it would be a really easy way to like, how are we going to do a fundraiser for our young men and young women? We're going to sell copies of the Book of Mormon to people and we'll see what happens. Not members though, just we're going to go around the neighborhood and say, hey, have you ever heard of us? We're the formerly called Mormons, would you like to buy the book? And we'll see how it goes. Maybe after Under the Banner of Heaven run, we'll get a lot more of it. But there's already been multiple attempts to purloin the text, to steal the text, and to print it under other pretenses by people trying to take it.
Gerrit And the one that's most famous is the Abner Cole episode. And I know what you're thinking, Richard. Everyone already knows the Abner Cole episode. People are screaming at their phones right now. Would you stop talking about that? Please don't subject us to yet another iteration of the Abner Cole episode. Maybe you could have a greater paucity or dearth of Abner Coleisms in your podcast. We might have actually referenced it at some point, but this is where someone was trying to illegitimately make money off of the text of the Book of Mormon. They are publishing the Book of Mormon at Grandin's print shop. They've already made the agreement. You've got Oliver Cowdery and Hyrum Smith, who are very fastidious about taking the pages there. They're so worried that, I always say, for some weird reason, they're worried people might try to steal pages of the text.
Gerrit It's an odd thing. Of course, Martin Harris already had 116 pages stolen from him. They keep pretty close tabs on it. They take only a few pages of the manuscript at a time to Grandin's print shop. But while they're keeping very close tabs on manuscript as it's being prepared for publication, what's much harder to keep close tabs on is the already published sheets. Because this is, you know, 5,000 copies of a 600 page book. And so the way that you would print a book back then is you would print, you know, you wouldn't reset the type for every single page. All right, there's one and now page two and now you would print the first 16 pages, because then you would be cutting foot because they're on these big sheets. You'd typeset all of the first 16 pages. And then you would print off 5,000 of those.
Gerrit And you'd stack them and you'd dry them and stack so you have all of the first 16 pages of the Book of Mormon or what I like to call it the only part that everyone's read multiple times. I, Nevi, having been born of Goodly, and then they get to, you know, what is this, Isaiah? And then they, you know, that's it. Well, maybe next year. Well, it'll take another prophetic injunction for me to even try. But they get these sheets, 5,000 of them stacked up there and they're hanging all over the place drying. It's pretty much impossible, given their limited space, control those printed sheets. And the way that Lucy Mack Smith tells the story, and this is the only place we really get the story, they're one day they're home on a Sunday. Now, back in New England and upstate New York in the early 19th century, not only was, you know, working on the Sabbath seemed very much frownable, there are still many communities that have what are called blue laws, which are anti-breaking the Sabbath laws, right?
Gerrit That it's actually a fine if you're working in your blacksmith shop on a Sunday. But at the very least, culturally, the idea that you would work on Sunday just means you aren't a good Christian, right? That's very different than the way it is now. In fact, I was listening to one of the most prominent Calvinist preachers, again, because I'm keeping my options open, and a modern, prominent Calvinist preacher in America today. And it was a Q&A session, and someone actually asked him about whether or not he thought that it was wrong to do certain things on the Sabbath day. And he just completely blows up this guy. And essentially says that that's the old law. The old law is so many steps on a Sunday. We live the law of grace now. And like I said, he is a hardcore conservative Calvinist.
Gerrit I mean, he's five point all the way. He believes in predestination, and God is sovereign over all, and we could spend a lot of time on why everyone's going to hell, because everybody is as far as he's concerned. But for him, he saw restriction of Sabbath day activities as pharisaic, essentially.
Intro Yeah, but boy, I don't know. Just not that long ago, growing up as a kid in the 80s and early 90s in Idaho, everything seemed to be still pretty closed on Sundays.
Gerrit Yeah, I mean, I remember they had a big chain that they would wrap around the beer cooler at the local convenience store on Sundays. Because you weren't allowed to buy beer in the county on Sundays. And I only know that because someone told me that. I wouldn't actually go into the convenience store on a Sunday. I'm just saying, theoretically... This is the liquor equivalent of you telling somebody that their eyes are open during a prayer. Yeah, I went in there and they wouldn't sell me any. They didn't have any. It was locked. When's the sacrament meeting? Yeah, so that's morphed over the course of time. But back in Joseph's time, it is still a really big deal, especially in those New England and upper northern states, to really see the Sabbath day as being something completely different.
Gerrit You don't work, you pray, you go to church for hours at a time. So it's a completely different day. And so they're sitting at home, Hyrum and Oliver. And this is Lucy Mac Smith telling the story. So Oliver's going to come off not so well in this, because if Lucy has to choose who she's rooting for, her murdered son or someone who had apostatized from the church, it's probably not that close of a run at the time. Now, in fact, by the time her book gets published, Oliver will have come back to the church and then passed away. But when she initially wrote it, he was still out. So I think we'll give her that. But she says that they're sitting home, and I'm not quoting this, so if you want to go read the book, you can go read Lucy's book and you'll see a much better version of this. This is just from memory, which is why it's so bad. They're sitting there, and Hyrum starts to have like a super uneasy feeling. And it's like, there's something going on.
Gerrit I think we need to go down to the print shop. Well, Oliver, again, probably thinking, look, everyone in the community already hates us and thinks we're not real Christians because we believe in, quote, the gold Bible delusion. We can't be going into the print shop on Sunday. So it looks like we're working on this on Sunday. I mean, the last thing we need now, Oliver doesn't say all this, and Lucy Max Smith, I'm giving Oliver the dialogue here, but Oliver doesn't think it's appropriate to go on Sunday. And they kind of hem and haw about it, and then Hyrum has the feeling again, and Oliver still doesn't think this is real. Finally, Hyrum has the feeling and is like, I'm going down there. You can come with me if you want, but I'm going. And so he goes. They expect to find, you know, essentially the boarded up print shop, you know, the door is locked, because it's a Sunday. What do they find? Oh, no, that printing press is moving, and there's someone in there printing.
Gerrit Now, unbeknownst to them, but knownst to Egbert Grandin, Grandin was trying to maximize his profit off of that printing press. He, you know, the Saints, I think, felt like they had essentially purchased all of the time. Like, here's this gigantic book. We're paying you thousands of dollars. But they, of course, didn't want the press to be working on Sundays, and also at night, you know, you work a regular nine to five, and the typesetter goes home. But Grandin was actually renting out his print shop at night and on the Sabbath to another man in the neighborhood who was trying to print his own newspaper. He went by the Nome de Plume of Obadiah Dogberry, which if you were going to choose a pen name... That's the one I'd go with. You'd choose, yeah, yeah, Obadiah Dogberry.
Gerrit And the paper that they were printing was called the Palmyra Reflector. The Palmyra Reflector, you know, is a struggling little paper being printed on the weekend trying to get a place. He prints a couple of things railing on this and railing on that, and certainly prints some things attacking the whole idea of the gold Bible and the Mormons. But he also, I think, sees an opportunity when he's standing in that print shop with all of these already completed pages of the Book of Mormon printed all around him. And so what does he do? He begins publishing portions of the Book of Mormon in his newspaper. So the first place that some of the verses of the Book of Mormon would be read by anyone outside of Joseph and Oliver and Hyrum, is in this Palmyra Reflector newspaper.
Gerrit Well, his circulation is so bad that they don't seem to know about it. Joseph doesn't know about it. Hyrum didn't even know someone was working in the print shop. Hyrum gets there, confronts, sees that this guy's name, his name is Abner Cole, sees that Cole is printing portions of the Book of Mormon on the press and says, sir, you can't publish this. And Cole, who, according to the accounts, everything he wants to do is he wants to fight. Oh, you want to fight about it, basically. And so Hyrum sends an urgent message to Joseph, and Joseph is so worried about it, even though he has no money, he comes up on the stage. That's a way of knowing that this is urgent because he's not just walking the three days, he's going to take the stage so that he can get there in less than a day because he's going to keep changing horses and he just ride the whole way up. So Joseph gets up there, and then Joseph confronts Abner Cole.
Gerrit And Cole, his immediate reaction, Cole's immediate reaction is to again threaten to get in a fight with Joseph Smith, like starts to take his jacket off and like, all right, which one of the things I regret most not happening in history, is I wanted that fight, you know, the secretly the inside of me was like, I'd like to see now Abner Cole was a pretty rough and tumble guy. He was justice of the peace. So maybe he would have won that, you know, but then hopefully, you know, you know, high arms behind him with a glass bottle or something. And, you know, but in this, this, you know, Joseph says, well, I'm not going to fight you. I don't need to. I have a copyright for that because they've applied for and received a copyright. The Library of Congress. This material is copyright written material. And so they essentially say, you know, if you don't stop printing it will sue you. And so by the end of January, he stops printing portions of the Book of Mormon in his paper. All of that is to say, this revelation that I'm going to talk about, which is not related to that directly at all, is received during the same time period that they had just had a problem with someone trying to print pages of the Book of Mormon in an unauthorized way.
Gerrit So I think as they are thinking about it and contemplating it, they're probably thinking, look, copyright law, as many podcasters who actually make money on their podcast would tell you, doesn't do a very good job of protecting people with their content. I mean, the reality is you can have copywritten content, and the problem is trying to enforce that copyright. And so someone puts it up on their website, and you send them a cease and desist letter, and so they put it up on a different website. I mean, it's a long drawn out process to try to stop people from stealing work like that. I had the experience working for it, so I'm the editor of a journal called Latter-day Saint Historical Studies. If you haven't heard of it, I hope you look into it. It's the journal that's published by the Ensign Peak Foundation, which was formerly known as the Mormon Historic Sites Foundation. The Mormon Historic Sites Foundation is, now the Ensign Peak Foundation, is dedicated to trying to preserve aspects of Latter-day Saint Historic Sites, just as the name implies.
Gerrit So they get their name, the Ensign Peak Foundation, because they were the driving force behind getting the Ensign Peak acquired, setting it aside as a monument, maintaining it. And that's been that way for many other church sites. In fact, just recently, I don't know how recently, by the time you hear this, they were instrumental in getting a new monument placed in Topsfield, Massachusetts, in the cemetery there, to the Smith family and their descendants, because that's where the earliest Smith, Robert Smith, that came to the colonies as an indentured servant, that's where he eventually settles, gets land, and four generations of Smiths live there. That's another story, though. But they helped raise money and coordinate with the church and with other entities to create a large monument that's there now in Topsfield. At any rate, that journal publication, multiple times we have had, not just people publishing content from the journal online, places where they're not authorized to do, we actually had an incident in which someone had published something in our journal.
Gerrit Another person in another country had taken the article word for word, changed the name out, and wrote someone else's, wrote their own name in and put it online as their own article. That's shrewd. That's Solomon Spaulding-esque. That's pretty good. Yeah, where was the late war when you needed it? What country? I can't even remember actually, but at any rate. So it's one thing to have a copyright, but being able to enforce it is incredibly difficult in 19th century America. It's difficult in 19th century America just for trying to track down the various printing presses that this material could have been printed on. So I don't know whether they discuss it first or whether this revelation comes out of the blue. And that is, well, we have a copyright for the United States, but we're actually surrounded, the nation, the United States is surrounded by British territory to the north and Mexico to the south.
Gerrit Well, we want to eventually preach in those places, but American copyright law doesn't exactly extend very well into Canada, which it's all part of Great Britain at that time. Your ancestors are still up there at this point?
Intro They're French.
Gerrit But they're under the oppression of the English oppressors.
Intro That's right.
Gerrit Yes, they're looking for every reason to rebel. So this revelation speaks about that. But there's a lot of words of this revelation that, you know, I kind of wish we had. Remember, this is early. This is probably January of 1830, same time frame as the Abner Cole affair. Behold, I, the Lord, am God. I created the heavens and the earth and all things that in them is. Wherefore, they are mine. And I sway my scepter over all the earth and year in my hands to will and do what that I can deliver you out of every difficulty and affliction, according to your faith and diligence and uprightness before me. First of all, that is a beautiful sentiment that is a rebel. It's this is words from the Lord that I can deliver you out of every difficulty and affliction, according to your faith and diligence and uprightness. That's that's beautiful. That's beautiful sentiment. I have Covenant with my servant that earth nor hell combined against him shall not take the blessing out of his hands, which I have prepared for him if he walketh uprightly before me.
Gerrit Again, where else would you learn that there's actually that it's not just Joseph believing if he does what the Lord wants that the Lord will bless him. He has Covenanted. God is saying that he's Covenant with Joseph that nothing can take that blessing away from him as long as he remains upright. He goes on saying neither temporal or spiritual blessing. And behold, I also Covenant with those who have assisted him in my work that I will do unto them even the same, because they have done that which is pleasing in my sight. Wherefore, be diligent in securing the copyright of my work upon all the face of the earth, of which is known by you unto my servant Joseph, and unto him whom he willeth according as I shall command him that the faithful and the righteous may retain the temporal blessing as well as the spiritual. And also that my work be not destroyed by the workers of iniquity to their own destruction and damnation when they are fully ripe.
Gerrit And now behold, I say unto you that I have covenanted, and it pleaseth me that Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Knight, Hiram Page and Josiah Stoll shall do my work in this thing, yea, even in securing the copyright, and they shall do it with an eye single to my glory that it may be the means of bringing souls unto salvation through mine only begotten. Behold, I am God, I have spoken it, and is expedient in me wherefore I say unto you that you shall go to Kingston seeking me continually through mine only begotten, and if you do this, you shall have my spirit to go with you, and you shall have an addition of all things which is expedient in me. I grant unto my servant a privilege that he may sell a copyright through you, speaking after the manner of men for the four provinces. That's the provinces of Canada. If the people harden out their hearts against the enticings of my spirit, and my word, for behold, it lieth in themselves to their condemnation or to their salvation.
Gerrit There's more to The Revelation, but you can see what's going on here. They're told they need to secure a copyright in order to defend this work against evil people like Abner Cole, but also that they are going to try to raise funds by selling, essentially thinking, look, printers in Canada, once this takes off, all the printers in America make fun of the Book of Mormon now, but once it starts actually selling, people are going to try to create pirated copies. In Canada, the same thing. So why don't we facilitate the publication of it in Canada by simply selling the copyright up there to a printer up there who can then print it, and while he's trying to make money off of it, also the gospel is going to whoever gets the book. And they actually go do this. They go up to Kingston. They find that they're not able to secure a copyright there, but they'd have to go all the way to York to secure a copyright, and they end up deciding that that is too far to go in the wintertime.
Gerrit I mean, I don't know if any of you have ever even been near Canada in the wintertime, but if it's January and you're in Toronto, you don't want to be, right? So they decide not to go and they come back, and so nothing's ever actually done with this. Had they been able to secure the copyright in Canada, there was essentially no enforcement of British copyright law in Canada at all, so it probably wouldn't have helped very much, and we don't know whether or not they'd have been able to find someone who had been willing to sell it. They weren't greeted with a whole lot of enthusiasm in Kingston, but that's exactly what the Lord says in the Revelation, that the people have to not harden their hearts to it. But that they saw this as a Revelation is clear. They leave and walk up to Kingston, Canada to try to do as the Revelation requires. So here's an example of perhaps the reason why this one's not included in the Doctrine and Covenants is that's a very, very specific thing, selling the copyright of the Book of Mormon.
Gerrit But it also has those cool teachings in it too that you wouldn't really have otherwise. At any rate, it doesn't make its way into the Doctrine and Covenants, and that's the reason why we're covering it here. There are several others that I like to spend a little bit of time on, but I think we're going to save that for our next podcast.
Intro Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat. If you know anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them. And for more resources, visit standardoftruth.com. Until next time.

Source shelf

19 sources cited on air · verses link to the scriptures, Joseph Smith’s documents to the Joseph Smith Papers
book

Doctrine and Covenants (1835 edition)

Its title said it held selected revelations, so early members knew Joseph had received others.
revelation

Revelation, Kirtland, January 12, 1838 (on stakes of Zion)

can any branch of the Church of the Latter-day Saints be considered a stake of Zion until they have acknowledged the authority of the First Presidency by a vote of said church?
A question-and-answer revelation on whether a branch can count as a stake before acknowledging the First Presidency.
revelation

Revelation, Kirtland, January 12, 1838, the answer

No stake shall be appointed except by the First Presidency, and this presidency be acknowledged by the voice of the same. Otherwise, it shall not be counted as a stake of Zion.
No stake is a stake unless the First Presidency appoints it and the members acknowledge that presidency.
scripture

Revelation 22:18-19 (paraphrased)

if any man add to or take away from the words of this book, let him be accursed
Gerrit jokes that treating the D&C as closed makes us sound like the Baptists we met on our missions (book identified, not cited on air).
Read Revelation 22:18–19 →
newspaper

John E. Page's church publication in Pittsburgh (name not given on air)

An aggressive paper defending the gospel and attacking Trinitarian doctrine, which helps explain the later counsel to use soft words.
letter

Joseph Smith and the Quorum of the Twelve (Willard Richards, scribe) to John E. Page, November 25, 1843

where the word of the Lord came to Joseph the Seer
Written after the council read Page's letter from Boston; it introduces the revelation as the word of the Lord to Joseph the Seer.
Find it in the Joseph Smith Papers →
journal

Wilford Woodruff's journal, late 1841 to 1844

Gerrit notes Woodruff begins calling Joseph "Joseph the Seer" almost every time in these years.
revelation

Revelation to John E. Page, quoted in the November 25, 1843 letter

from the city of Boston and go directly to the city of Washington and labor diligently in proclaiming my gospel to the inhabitants thereof.
Sends Page from Boston to Washington; "speedily" is underlined in the original.
letter

Same letter to John E. Page, counsel after the revelation

Let your words be soft on the people, but full of the spirit and the power of the Holy Ghost.
Not part of the revelation itself, but counsel from Joseph and the Twelve on how Page should preach.
revelation

Manuscript Revelation Book, Commandment 23 (Canadian copyright revelation, early 1830)

Given at Manchester, Ontario County, New York.
The earliest recorded revelation not selected for the D&C, headed by John Whitmer; Gerrit notes Hyrum's name is misspelled in the heading.
scripture

1 Nephi 1:1

having been born of Goodly
The first pages of the Book of Mormon, "the only part that everyone's read multiple times."
Read 1 Nephi 1:1 →
book

Lucy Mack Smith's history

The only real source for the Abner Cole story; Gerrit retells it from memory and urges listeners to read her version.
newspaper

Palmyra Reflector, edited by Abner Cole as "Obadiah Dogberry"

Printed on Grandin's press on nights and Sundays, it ran portions of the Book of Mormon until Joseph threatened to sue in January 1830.
article

Latter-day Saint Historical Studies (journal Gerrit edits, Ensign Peak Foundation)

Gerrit's modern example of copyright theft: someone republished a journal article under their own name.
revelation

Canadian copyright revelation, opening

I can deliver you out of every difficulty and affliction, according to your faith and diligence and uprightness before me.
Gerrit calls this promise a beautiful sentiment you would not find anywhere else.
revelation

Canadian copyright revelation, the charge to secure the copyright

Wherefore, be diligent in securing the copyright of my work upon all the face of the earth
God covenants with Joseph and his helpers and tells them to protect the work.
revelation

Canadian copyright revelation, the Kingston assignment

you shall go to Kingston seeking me continually through mine only begotten
Names Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Knight, Hiram Page and Josiah Stowell (said on air as "Stoll") and sends them to Kingston.

More from this episode

Claim checkThings people say, and what the episode shows.

Claim check

What critics say, and what the episode found
If a revelation isn't in the Doctrine and Covenants, it wasn't really from God.
Wards came first, and stakes were formed later by grouping wards.
Take it to classReady to use in a lesson or a talk.

Take it to class

Ready to copy into a lesson or a text

The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants called itself selected revelations; being left out of the book never meant a revelation wasn't from God.

D&C 137 was revealed in 1836 and canonized in 1981, but it was just as true in 1980.

In 1843 the Lord told John E. Page to go to Washington, and Joseph and the Twelve added: "Let your words be soft... do not challenge the sects for debate, but treat them as brethren and friends."

Even an early revelation about selling a copyright carries a promise for all of us: the Lord can deliver us "out of every difficulty and affliction, according to your faith and diligence and uprightness."

Banter binThe funniest moments in this episode.

Banter bin

The running jokes, for people who skip ahead
Townships, the nadirThe Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is named the secret word of the day and may replace townships, the tangent listeners cared about less the longer it went (1:47, 2:01).
Eric's live feedListener Eric "texts" mid-episode asking for more, and about the Kansas-Nebraska Act (24:03, 24:06).
Benson, VermontBenson has no branch at all, its branch president has a 208 Idaho phone number, and there is exactly one Latter-day Saint there (10:58, 11:44).
Held together with spit and gumThe "studio" is an upstairs bedroom with a folding table, run by low-budget hosts (24:06).
How many Quorums of the Twelve?A slip about "one of the Quorums" of the Twelve sets off a joke about a text from the stake president (25:12).
The Boston missionA dad who served in Boston is teased that it was the Western States Mission, and missionaries were there before he "opened that area" (26:55, 27:04).
Dearth, paucity, remuneratedGerrit's vocabulary gets laughed at, and he threatens a new podcast called Richard LeDuc Isn't Embarrassing (41:04, 41:25).
Canada and the QuebecoisRichard vetoed the Canadian copyright topic on name alone, though he loves Canada and his French ancestors (39:33, 60:41).
The fight that never happenedGerrit regrets that Abner Cole and Joseph never actually fought (55:37).
The beer cooler chainSunday closing in 1980s Idaho, which Gerrit only knows about because someone told him (49:26).
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The Phebe Draper Palmer Brown Mailbag

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General ConferenceGeneral Conference talks that cite a scripture read in this episode.

In General Conference

Talks from the latest General Conference that cite a scripture this episode reads or names on air
October 2026 General Conference · cites D&C 138The Hour of Your Mission Is ComeBishop Sean DouglasBishop Douglas thanks missionaries of every age and urges the rising generation to place full-time missionary service high on their list.October 2026 General Conference · cites 1 Nephi 1:1I Am a Child of GodElder Hutch U. FaleElder Fale teaches that every person is a beloved child of heavenly parents, illustrating God's unearned love by showing his children their baby pictures: they did nothing to earn their parents' love and can do nothing to lose it.

Summaries, themes and lessons for every talk are on What Did They Say?

Go deeperWhere to read more.

Go deeper

Deep dives the episode points toward
Look up the uncanonized revelations in the Joseph Smith Papers, starting with the Kirtland revelations of January 1838 (5:03).
Read John E. Page's Pittsburgh publication and see why Joseph and the Twelve told him to let his words be soft (36:28).
Read Lucy Mack Smith's own telling of Hyrum, Oliver and Abner Cole at Grandin's print shop (50:27).
Compare how the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants was compiled with how D&C 137 and 138 were added in 1981 (19:51).
SOT Litner · S2E24.