Church leaders, historians reflect on Joseph Smith Papers

After decades of research and scholarship, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is on the verge of publishing the final two of 27 volumes of the Joseph Smith Papers.

The intensive project, completed with the expertise of skilled historians, scholars and volunteers, has produced 7.5 million words, 50,000 footnotes and nearly 19,000 pages, as well as a resourceful, informative website. Each document was subject to a rigorous review process to determine validity and accuracy.

The Joseph Smith Papers project has not only benefitted scholars who are researching the Church and its history, but it also has provided newly discovered insights that have enhanced other Church projects, such as “Saints, Vol. 1: The Standard of Truth.”

Why was it important for the Church to take on such an expensive, time-consuming project?

First and foremost, because of Joseph Smith’s prophetic calling, which testifies of Jesus Christ, said President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

“Why do we do it? Because he is a Prophet of God, and he restored the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ,” said President Ballard, who shares ecclesiastical and blood ties to Joseph and his brother Hyrum Smith. “We should honor him. We should thank our Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ that they gave to us Joseph Smith, to restore the fullness of the gospel that gives us light and knowledge. ... How blessed we are to know what we know about Joseph Smith, the Prophet of the dispensation of the fullness of times.”

President Ballard was one of several individuals, including Church leaders, historians and scholars, who reflected on all aspects of the Joseph Smith Papers project and its future influence in recent Church News interviews.

Why preserve the Joseph Smith Papers?

The Church went to great lengths to preserve the Joseph Smith Papers to build faith in Jesus Christ, to document his life as the first Prophet of the Restoration and to be transparent, said Elder Kyle S. McKay, a General Authority Seventy who serves as the Church’s historian and recorder.

“If you study his life and come to know him, then hopefully you will come to know with greater certainty that Jesus is the Christ. That is the primary focus,” Elder McKay said. “Joseph Smith was the first Prophet of the Restoration, so we give an appropriate emphasis on his life. There is also a great effort to be transparent in what we are doing. The Joseph Smith Papers, I think, are perhaps the best example of transparency that we have in modern history.”

Those who study Joseph’s papers will see evidence of how the Lord worked with an imperfect human being.

“It is a testament to me that maybe God can use me, mistake-prone as I am,” Elder McKay said.

Another reason the Church decided to undertake the Joseph Smith Papers was to have a “better intellectual grasp on everything about him,” said Matthew J. Grow, managing director of the Church History Department.

“He left behind a voluminous number of documents. For the Church to really understand its early history, its spiritual legacy, how revelation works, we needed to understand those documents at a much deeper level than we then did,” Grow said before citing the list of previously mentioned statistics of words, footnotes and pages. “All of this to understand the Prophet Joseph Smith, the early Church better, and all of this to say that our history can withstand the most intense scrutiny.”

A primary resource for scholars

The Joseph Smith Papers have created a new foundation for early Church history that didn’t exist before the project, said Elder Marlin K. Jensen, emeritus General Authority Seventy and former Church historian and recorder, who oversaw the first half of the project.

Many biographies have been written about Joseph Smith over time that did not did not have the opportunity to research his papers. Going forward, for any future biography to have credibility in any scholarly community, it will have to go through the Joseph Smith Papers.

“Joseph Smith, without a doubt, was a major Prophet. ... To complete a project that encompasses essentially his body of work, in written form, is a phenomenal accomplishment,” Elder Jensen said. “Our hope, from the very beginning, was that the project would be of such a caliber that no one again in the future would ever be able to write about Joseph Smith in a credible way without using these papers as the primary source. That is happening.”

Advantage of resources

Documentary editing projects like the Joseph Smith Papers generally exist at universities where funding is always a problem. Heads of those projects often spend most of their time fundraising and writing grants.

The Joseph Smith Papers has had the advantage of an editorial staff and editors — a “real team operation” — to ensure the highest quality work thanks to generous funding by the Larry and Gail Miller Foundation and the Church.

“Together, we have been able to do things on the Joseph Smith Papers that are very unusual for these documentary editing projects,” Grow said. “Those resources have enabled us to scour the country to find every Joseph Smith document; they have enabled us to bring together historians and editors who are the top of their craft; they have enabled us to print beautiful volumes and create an amazing website. ... We have just had the amazing blessing of having funders who believed in the project.”

These resources have allowed the Joseph Smith Papers to publish volumes at an accelerated pace, which sets it apart from other premiere papers projects, such as the Thomas Jefferson Papers or the Benjamin Franklin Papers, which have been going on for decades and sometimes publish one book every couple of years.

The Joseph Smith Papers decided early on to publish two volumes per year. Maintaining that schedule was one of the project’s biggest challenges. It often required late nights and extra work by the whole staff to keep up. The bulk of the project has happened in the last decade, Grow said.

Core documents in the Joseph Smith Papers

Theoretically, if it became necessary to grab the most important Joseph Smith Papers documents and run to safety with them, what would they be? 

Richard E. Turley Jr., former assistant Church historian and recorder, said he would rescue the following, all of which have been published as part of the papers project:

“To me, the most important parts of the papers, and the most important parts of his life, were the spiritual experiences that he had and the materials that flowed from that,” Turley said, “from the Book of Mormon, early in his life, to the temple and its purposes at the end of his life.”

What the papers reveal about Joseph Smith

Most of what is found in the Joseph Smith Papers shows the Prophet on a day-to-day basis, including his various roles, personal challenges and mistakes. Readers can get to know him as a relatable human being, “undiluted and unscreened,” Turley said.

“The Joseph Smith papers reflect very candidly Joseph Smith’s life. He was chastised by God. He made mistakes. He had family difficulties and he makes no attempt to hide those in his papers,” Turley said. “So when you read the Joseph Smith Papers, you read the unvarnished Joseph Smith. You see him with all of his weaknesses, and that gives hope to imperfect beings like me, who realized that if God can work through someone like Joseph Smith, that perhaps he can do something with me.”

Many have asked Matthew Godfrey, a historian and general editor of the project, how working on the Joseph Smith Papers has affected his testimony, assuming it has been harmful to dig deep into Church history.

But for Godfrey, who has worked on the project for 13 years, his experience has been quite the opposite. His faith has been strengthened to see the documents reveal a “sincere” Joseph who cared about others and whose main life goal was to be obedient to God’s commandments.

“To be able to get into who Joseph Smith was as a person, how he came across to people and what he was concerned with has made me admire him even more,” Godfrey said. “When I look at these documents and how Joseph Smith is portrayed in them, he is not someone that comes across to me as an imposter. ... He comes across as someone who truly believes that he has been called of God to be a prophet, that he has been called to restore this Church, and that he is going to do the very best he can to do everything that God has asked him to do.”

Anyone with questions or concerns about Church history could learn a great deal from researching the Joseph Smith Papers.

“If you are wondering about what happened in the early history of the Church, if you want to know about Joseph Smith’s revelations and what they really say, if you want to see the hand of God operating through Joseph Smith, if you want to see Jesus Christ revealed through Joseph Smith, read the Joseph Smith Papers,” Turley said.

Witnesses of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith

One of the most spiritual moments of Elder Jensen’s life came as he bore his testimony to his wife as they sat on a bench together in the Sacred Grove, where Joseph Smith had his First Vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ in spring 1820.

Anyone can come to know Jesus Christ more deeply because of Joseph Smith’s life and experiences.

“We personally can have our own witness, our own experiences with deity,” Elder Jensen said. “In the course of my life, through experiences that I could never deny, I have come to know in an unshaken way of God’s existence and the reality of His Beloved Son, and that those two divine beings called the Prophet Joseph to restore the Church of Jesus Christ in our day. My wife and I have staked our lives on it, and I know we will never be disappointed.”

As a young boy, Elder McKay has a vivid recollection of a Primary teacher giving a lesson on the Prophet Joseph Smith that ended with him taking home a picture that he placed on the wall above his bed. The picture sparked a conversation between him and his mother that has stayed with him his whole life.

“I said, ‘Mom, one day I’m going grow up and be just like that man.’ I want to be like that man still. I want to know Jesus like he knew Jesus,” he said. “I testify that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God. Because of that knowledge, I know with certainty that Jesus is the Christ the Son of a living God. Nothing has brought me closer to Jesus Christ, than the revelations we have because of the Prophet Joseph Smith.”

Final two Joseph Smith Papers volumes

The final two volumes of the project come from its “Documents” series.

The Joseph Smith Papers website

After the final volumes are published, the Joseph Smith Papers website at josephsmithpapers.org will continue to be a resource that is free and available to all.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEnJ%2BuqpOdu6bD0meaqKVfnba0wM6rsGhqYGeAcH%2BObGdoamNrgHOEkm9mo6ejmr2pedKmoK2gXaWusbHRrGSpqp%2BfsqTAjJyfrqqTnXqptdKtpquxXaGxtHnFmqCtoA%3D%3D