Had Joseph circulated this letter to church membership today, critics would blog, “well and good, but where’s the voice of the Lord?” It is clearly inspired and based on revelation, but it is not the revelation. It is quite clear that Joseph is inspired and has received a revelation (or several) on the subject, but what is also clear is that Joseph is the one explaining the doctrine based on what he’s learned and not the Lord. This information is instead contained in two letters ( epistles) where the prophet explains these details. But what this ordinance was, why it ought to be performed, and how it ought to be performed was not included in this revelation. Joseph recorded the revelation commanding the saints to build the Nauvoo temple, which would house various ordinances including baptisms for the dead. Then of course we have revelations that were received, but the only record we have of them is from letters. Other revelations “cannot be revealed unto the world” (see explanations for Facsimile 2), and were reserved for local sermons and teaching in the temple. Some revelations repeated instruction that had previously been given in other revelations that had subsequently been published and would be redundant in book form. Some of these revelations were extremely narrow in scope and thus not “profitable for all men”. Subsequent editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, with even more revelations to choose from, were equally selective about what to include. These revelations contain the standard markers of our scriptural revelations that tell us they come from God, even including “ saith the Lord“! Yet they were not officially published. In this manuscript, we not only find revelations that were canonized and attested as “given by inspiration of God, and are profitable for all men and are verily true” ( Testimony of the Twelve Apostles to the Truth of the Book of Doctrine and Covenants), but also instructional items from Joseph, revelation received by Oliver Cowdery, and uncanonized revelations received by Joseph. The revelations we have were prepared for publication in a manuscript book historians refer to as Revelation Book 1. Joseph was a treasured well-spring of revelation, but not all of his revelations made it into the Doctrine and Covenants. In light of that ambiguity, the faithful saint can either assume the revelatory stream has been steady, or take comfort that the public references to the active voice of Providence are in line with the revelatory patterns taught by Joseph Smith. There is some ambiguity as to whether or not the frequency of “Thus saith the Lord” mind-to-mind communication has declined or remained steady. Why doesn’t the Doctrine and Covenants contain more revelations? It seems like all the “Thus saith the Lord” type revelations were given way back in the early days of the Church, and any revelation given since has more to do with being guided by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost than it does by literal mind-to-mind communication with the Lord.
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