Joseph Smith Papers

President Dallin H. Oaks announced at the seventh annual Joseph Smith Papers Conference that the Church will publish a new biography about Joseph Smith.

The final print volume of the Joseph Smith Papers hits the shelves today. Here are 12 eye-opening things that the project brought to light over the last 20-plus years.

For Latter-day Saints today, the Pittsburgh Gazette interview is most notable for providing us with a detailed account of Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

This new volume of the Joseph Smith Papers is the “closest experience that most people will have of being able to hold [the original Book of Mormon manuscript] in their hands”

A new miniseries podcast from the Joseph Smith Papers discusses discusses how the building of the Nauvoo Temple and the ordinances introduced there are essential to our appreciation for the temple, Joseph Smith’s doctrinal teachings, and the Restoration.

In April 2021, The Church Historian’s Press released the latest volume in the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Documents, Volume 12 covers five pivotal months of the Prophet Joseph’s life in Nauvoo, from March through July 1843. Here are five things from the volume that you may not have known:

This article is from The Joseph Smith Papers and is shared with permission.

This article is from The Joseph Smith Papers and is shared with permission.

When I got a notification in late November in my podcasts app, it really felt like Christmas came early. A new episode from The First Vision: A Joseph Smith Papers Podcast was titled, “New Podcast Mini-Series Announcement.”

Documents, Volume 11 of The Joseph Smith Papers covers a dynamic period in Joseph Smith’s life. At the outset of the volume, in September 1842, Joseph Smith was a hunted man and had to spend months in hiding avoiding arrest and extradition to Missouri. By February 1843, at the close of the volume, Joseph had experienced one of his greatest legal victories and was optimistically planning for additional growth and settlement in Nauvoo and the surrounding area. Throughout it all he remained energetically engaged in teaching the Saints and supporting the Church. Here are five surprising things we learn about Joseph Smith and Nauvoo in this volume of The Joseph Smith Papers.

The Church Historian's Press announced that the 2020 Joseph Smith Papers Conference has moved to an online-only format to ensure the health and safety of all participants. The fourth annual conference will be held on Friday, September 18, 2020.

On August 8, 1842, Thomas King arrested Joseph Smith. Soon after—perhaps even the same day—Thomas King helped Joseph avoid arrest. Two different individuals with the same name, Thomas King, played entirely different roles in Missouri’s second attempt to extradite Joseph Smith. Their stories are captured in the newest addition to the Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 10.

To say the summer of 1842 was a busy season in the life of Joseph Smith would likely be an understatement. During the time, his responsibilities included overseeing missionary work, encouraging the construction of the Nauvoo Temple, editing the Times and Seasons, gathering converts, serving as mayor, and dealing with his bankruptcy application.

God once told Joseph Smith that his name would be “had for good and evil” in the world. We often see the fulfillment of that prophecy in extremes: some set Joseph up as a god-like figure of perfection, and while others see him as an evil, corrupt man. That stark dichotomy can make knowing what the prophet was really like feel as impossible as time travel.

This month, the Joseph Smith Papers Project reached an important milestone on the josephsmithpapers.org website. The site was updated to include more than one hundred new documents, including discourses, sermons, letters, and meeting minutes dating from June 1844, the final month of Joseph Smith’s life. Among these documents are items dealing with Joseph Smith’s arrest and imprisonment in Carthage, Illinois, and letters to and from his family members, friends, fellow church members, lawyers, and the governor of Illinois.

You have certainly seen the facsimiles from the Book of Abraham in your copy of the Pearl of Great Price, but do you know the story of the Book of Abraham? The most recent publication of the Joseph Smith Papers—Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts—includes all the surviving documents related to Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham and his study of the Egyptian language. Here are four things you may not know about that story:

The Church Historian’s Press recently announced the release of the latest volume of The Joseph Smith Papers. Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscriptstracks the development of the Book of Abraham, from the time Joseph Smith and others purchased Egyptian papyri in 1835 through the publication of the Book of Abraham text and its accompanying illustrations in the church newspaper Times and Seasons in 1842.

June 27th will mark the 174th anniversary of the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. In honor of the beloved prophet, here are 9 books to help you learn more about him and the events of his life.

The Joseph Smith Papers recently published its17th volume associated with the life and works of Joseph Smith. The project, which began with the work of a single individual, has grown in scope and influence over its first decade. Along the way, the project has changed in numerous ways, overcome challenges, garnered unprecedented popularity, secured academic prestige, and set the stage for a new era of Mormon history.

Historians have long known of the existence of the Council of Fifty and the minutes of its meetings. Until recently, though, the minutes had never been made available for historical research. Because of their inaccessibility—and because historians knew that they were made during a critical and controversial era of Mormon history—a mystique grew surrounding the records. What did they contain? Why had they been withheld? Here are five insights from these important documents that every Mormon should understand about the Council of Fifty, as adapted from the new book The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal about Mormon History.

As The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 5: October 1835–January 1838 editor Christian Heimburger says, it was not uncommon in the days of the early Church for men to resolve their conflicts with physical blows. But on December 16, 1835, a particular physical confrontation resulted in the members of the Twelve Apostles to hold a special council for one of the men involved, while the other was left unable to "sit down or rise up without help," according to the new Joseph Smith Papers volume.

The new addition to the Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 5 is full of rich historical treasures that illuminate the life of the prophet Joseph Smith.

It isn't an easy task to narrow down the list of books written by prophets, apostles, and historians about the Church. The topics are varied and the viewpoints are many. However, there are certain books that have risen to the top and have stayed extremely relevant to readers over the years. We'd like to introduce our ultimate list of must-read LDS classics:

In the last year of Joseph Smith's life, he formed a council to discuss political and temporal matters, known as the Council of Fifty. In the newest installment of The Joseph Smith Papers, the council's minutes are now available to the public for the first time.

Most Mormons misunderstand the purpose of Zion's Camp in Church history, but recently released Church documents shed new light on this moment in our past and the sacrifice of those involved.

The Church Historian’s Press today announced the release of the latest volume of The Joseph Smith Papers. Documents, Volume 4: April 1834–September 1835contains 93 documents, including revelations, minutes of meetings, and correspondence. Documents in this volume pertain to major events in early Latter-day Saint history, including the construction of the House of the Lord in Kirtland, Ohio; the publication of Joseph Smith’s revelations in the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants; the calling of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and the expedition to reclaim Latter-day Saint lands in Jackson County, Missouri.

The last year of Joseph Smith’s life includes some of the richest accounts of Joseph’s public sermons, something that has shaped much of the Church as we know it today.

The Church Historian’s Press today announced the release of the latest volume of The Joseph Smith Papers, which features the final installment of the journals of Joseph Smith, the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Journals, Volume 3: May 1843–June 1844 “captures the complexity of Joseph Smith’s life and provides a framework for understanding the events of the final year of the prophet’s life, unmatched by any other single contemporaneous source,” said volume coeditor Alex D. Smith.

Did you know that early Church leaders originally planned to have 24 temples in Jackson County, Missouri? Or that several brethren had a vision of Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father during a meeting of the School of the Prophets? Read on to learn more fascinating facts you might not have known about Church history.

By now you have probably seen the pictures from the Church of Joseph Smith’s original seer stone, released in conjunction with the printing of an original manuscript of the Book of Mormon. But do you know how the Church came to obtain the stone?

MR says: The internet has been buzzing with talk about a seer stone used by Joseph Smith ever since the Church released photographs of it yesterday. But how much do you really know about this priceless artifact?

“A new volume of The Joseph Smith Papers Project featuring the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon was released Tuesday by the Church Historian’s Press, an imprint of the History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” reads a Mormon Newsroom statement. “Revelations and Translations, Volume 3: Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon is the 11th published volume of the project in the Church’s ongoing effort to make every document produced by Church founder Joseph Smith or by his scribes available to the public.”