Canon of LDS (Mormon) Scriptures, or "Standard Works"
The King James Bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price constitute the scriptural canon of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members are urged to study them every day, especially the Book of Mormon. Doing so is said to invite the Spirit, to facilitate communication from God both while reading and throughout the day. The LDS canon is open and can theoretically be added to through continuing revelation, but this has happened very little since Joseph Smith's death. It contains very little of the church's actual teachings and practice, and sometimes blatantly contradicts them. If future anthropologists ever try to reconstruct a religion based only on these four books, they won't come up with anything close to the LDS Church.
The Holy Bible: King James Version
The Bible (from the Greek word biblia, meaning books) is a compilation of several ancient records divided into the Old and New Testaments. The LDS Church, like all Christian denominations, reads prophecies and foreshadowing of Jesus Christ into the Old Testament, though it is unique in identifying him as Jehovah. It officially uses the King James Version, which Joseph Smith claimed was the most doctrinally correct, even though modern translations are more accurate and easier to understand. Latter-day Saints don't believe the Bible is inerrant. They believe that as it was passed down through the ages, going through several transcriptions and translations, errors and deliberate changes were made and many "plain and precious truths" were lost. All manuscripts ever found are far removed from the originals. Even the King James Version was only the third translation into English, and it underwent several changes over a century and a half later. Saints point to the thousands of Christian denominations that exist today as proof that the Bible is too open to interpretation and they need the Book of Mormon as well.
The LDS Church usually focuses on prooftexts from the Bible to support its doctrinal claims, and has long been indifferent or openly hostile to biblical scholarship and textual criticism. Joseph Smith, as a nineteenth-century American, doubled down on the literal historicity of things like Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, and the Tower of Babel that the ancient Hebrews understood as myths. Two of the three other books in the standard works (the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price) depend on this assumption of historicity for some of their own claims. In the 1950s, his great-nephew Joseph Fielding Smith - heavily influenced by evangelical young earth creationists - pulled the church even farther toward fundamentalism with his influential writings. In his view, scripture required no interpretation or context to grasp its meaning and was an authoritative source of scientific as well as spiritual truth. Many Latter-day Saints today have more nuanced views, and the church is slowly updating curriculum to accommodate them, but they're pushing against the current of what it's more or less officially taught for decades.
I read the Bible from cover to cover on my own at age twelve or so, except for a couple chapters in Leviticus that I had to skip because they were just too boring. I definitely learned a few things that I wasn't taught in Sunday school. The weird and disturbing stuff in the Old Testament is a recipe for atheism if one isn't prepared. I'm no expert, but I suggest the book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God for a faith-promoting perspective. I will say, however, that for all its faults, I don't believe the Old Testament has inspired Christian atrocities. Both the Crusades and the Inquisition were primarily political, in an era when "separation of church and state" was a non-existent concept. A few cherry-picked verses were used to construct a spurious rationale for enslaving and segregating black people, while others today are used by the Westboro Baptist Church and their ilk, but that's not the Bible's fault. People are wicked by nature and have justified things with religion because it's the most convenient excuse when everyone is religious. We see similar issues today in Muslim countries with no separation of mosque and state.
The LDS Church usually focuses on prooftexts from the Bible to support its doctrinal claims, and has long been indifferent or openly hostile to biblical scholarship and textual criticism. Joseph Smith, as a nineteenth-century American, doubled down on the literal historicity of things like Adam and Eve, Noah's flood, and the Tower of Babel that the ancient Hebrews understood as myths. Two of the three other books in the standard works (the Book of Mormon and Pearl of Great Price) depend on this assumption of historicity for some of their own claims. In the 1950s, his great-nephew Joseph Fielding Smith - heavily influenced by evangelical young earth creationists - pulled the church even farther toward fundamentalism with his influential writings. In his view, scripture required no interpretation or context to grasp its meaning and was an authoritative source of scientific as well as spiritual truth. Many Latter-day Saints today have more nuanced views, and the church is slowly updating curriculum to accommodate them, but they're pushing against the current of what it's more or less officially taught for decades.
I read the Bible from cover to cover on my own at age twelve or so, except for a couple chapters in Leviticus that I had to skip because they were just too boring. I definitely learned a few things that I wasn't taught in Sunday school. The weird and disturbing stuff in the Old Testament is a recipe for atheism if one isn't prepared. I'm no expert, but I suggest the book Is God a Moral Monster?: Making Sense of the Old Testament God for a faith-promoting perspective. I will say, however, that for all its faults, I don't believe the Old Testament has inspired Christian atrocities. Both the Crusades and the Inquisition were primarily political, in an era when "separation of church and state" was a non-existent concept. A few cherry-picked verses were used to construct a spurious rationale for enslaving and segregating black people, while others today are used by the Westboro Baptist Church and their ilk, but that's not the Bible's fault. People are wicked by nature and have justified things with religion because it's the most convenient excuse when everyone is religious. We see similar issues today in Muslim countries with no separation of mosque and state.
Bible Miscellanea
Bible Dictionary: The Bible Dictionary, largely written by Bruce R. McConkie and imbued with his very conservative viewpoints, has been included with the LDS edition of the King James Bible since 1981. It contains entries on biblical people, places, things, doctrinal points and other matters, but does not in itself constitute scripture. Its preface reads in part: "This dictionary is provided to help your study of the scriptures and is not intended as an official statement of church doctrine or an endorsement of the historical and cultural views set forth." Revisions in 2013 updated the scholarship and severely toned down McConkie's fundamentalist interpretation of the creation story.
Joseph Smith Translation: The Joseph Smith Translation is the result of Joseph Smith's efforts to restore some lost truth to the Bible. It was cut short by his death and no one knows how much more he would have done. The footnotes and appendix of JST passages weren't added to LDS Bibles until 1978 because the Community of Christ holds the original manuscripts, but now it kindly allows the LDS Church to print some excerpts without copyright charges. For these reasons the JST is not canonized scripture except for the passages featured in the Pearl of Great Price (see below). There's little evidence that it represents an accurate restoration of the "original" form of the biblical text. It should more accurately be called a revision. Besides correcting statements that make little sense - e.g. God repenting of creating mankind in Genesis, God hardening Pharaoh's heart in Exodus, Jesus going into the wilderness so that the devil could tempt him, etc. - it clarifies and expands certain passages. Many skeptics now believe that Joseph Smith took hundreds of his changes verbatim from Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible. Apologists simultaneously dispute this and claim that it doesn't matter if he did anyway.
The Apocrypha: While working on his translation of the Old Testament, Joseph Smith came upon the Apocrypha - ancient texts that were rejected from the canon when the Bible was compiled - and asked the Lord if he should translate that as well. The Lord's alleged answer became section 91 of the Doctrine and Covenants (see below). "Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the Apocrypha - there are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly; there are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. Verily, I say unto you, that it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be translated. Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; and whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom; and whoso receiveth not the Spirit, cannot be benefited. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. Amen."
The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 are not canon but they fascinate LDS scholars, who have claimed doctrinal similarities and parallels to the Book of Mormon. LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls, written by several authors, is a good overview, though it must be outdated by now. The scrolls wouldn't include the "plain and precious truths" that were supposedly removed from the Bible because they're still centuries apart from the original manuscripts.
Joseph Smith Translation: The Joseph Smith Translation is the result of Joseph Smith's efforts to restore some lost truth to the Bible. It was cut short by his death and no one knows how much more he would have done. The footnotes and appendix of JST passages weren't added to LDS Bibles until 1978 because the Community of Christ holds the original manuscripts, but now it kindly allows the LDS Church to print some excerpts without copyright charges. For these reasons the JST is not canonized scripture except for the passages featured in the Pearl of Great Price (see below). There's little evidence that it represents an accurate restoration of the "original" form of the biblical text. It should more accurately be called a revision. Besides correcting statements that make little sense - e.g. God repenting of creating mankind in Genesis, God hardening Pharaoh's heart in Exodus, Jesus going into the wilderness so that the devil could tempt him, etc. - it clarifies and expands certain passages. Many skeptics now believe that Joseph Smith took hundreds of his changes verbatim from Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible. Apologists simultaneously dispute this and claim that it doesn't matter if he did anyway.
The Apocrypha: While working on his translation of the Old Testament, Joseph Smith came upon the Apocrypha - ancient texts that were rejected from the canon when the Bible was compiled - and asked the Lord if he should translate that as well. The Lord's alleged answer became section 91 of the Doctrine and Covenants (see below). "Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the Apocrypha - there are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly; there are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. Verily, I say unto you, that it is not needful that the Apocrypha should be translated. Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; and whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom; and whoso receiveth not the Spirit, cannot be benefited. Therefore it is not needful that it should be translated. Amen."
The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in 1947 are not canon but they fascinate LDS scholars, who have claimed doctrinal similarities and parallels to the Book of Mormon. LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls, written by several authors, is a good overview, though it must be outdated by now. The scrolls wouldn't include the "plain and precious truths" that were supposedly removed from the Bible because they're still centuries apart from the original manuscripts.
The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
The Book of Mormon is allegedly a record of ancient inhabitants of the Americas from about 600 BC to AD 421. It starts with a family that left Jerusalem to escape its destruction and traveled across the ocean to the promised land. It follows their descendants, the "white and delightsome" Nephites and the Lamanites who were cursed by God with "skins of blackness," for eight hundred years. It also includes a record they discovered from an extinct civilization called the Jaredites who left the Tower of Babel fiasco and came to the same land centuries earlier. Jesus Christ visits the Nephites, some of his "other sheep," after his resurrection. Throughout the book they follow a cycle of righteousness-prosperity-wickedness-devastation-repentance-repeat and eventually are destroyed by the Lamanites. The records that make up the Book of Mormon were allegedly compiled, and many of them abridged, by a Nephite prophet/historian/war hero named Mormon. He wrote them in "reformed Egyptian" on a set of golden plates and gave them to his son Moroni, who added his own writings and hid them under a rock on a hill in what is now western New York. Centuries later, on September 23, 1823, Moroni appeared as a resurrected angel to the teenaged Joseph Smith, who lived nearby and had already had a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ years earlier, and told him about the book and that he was called to translate it. After several more visits the plates were entrusted to Smith, who translated them with a seer stone he had previously used to scam people by pretending to look for buried treasure. (He never found any, but people still paid him.) When he finished, Moroni took the plates away.
The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 amid no small controversy. Since then it's been translated into scores of languages and printed in hundreds of millions of copies. Apologists point out many details and parallels that they see as evidences of ancient origin; see "Is There Any Evidence for the Book of Mormon?" and "The Book of Mormon Challenge" for more information. Three witnesses - Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris - testified that an angel had shown them the golden plates, while eight additional witnesses testified that Joseph had shown them. None of them ever denied this. On the other hand, it contains many anachronisms according to current knowledge, and one of the most respected LDS scholars, Richard Bushman, has stated "that there is phrasing everywhere - long phrases that if you google them you will find them in 19th century writings. The theology of the Book of Mormon is very much 19th century theology, and it reads like a 19th century understanding of the Hebrew Bible as an Old Testament. That is, it has Christ in it the way Protestants saw Christ everywhere in the Old Testament. That’s why we now call it 'Hebrew Bible' because the Jews never saw it quite that way. So, these are all problems we have to deal with." Even the basic premise of the book, a mythical origin story for Native Americans, is rooted in the racist nineteenth-century belief that the ancient mounds throughout North America were built by an advanced white race before the darker-skinned "savages" wiped them out.
The biggest selling point of the book is Moroni 10:4, near the end, which states, "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost." The LDS Church claims that this will usually happen through a warm or peaceful feeling, indistinguishable from the "spiritual witnesses" felt in every religion - but if no such feeling comes, it has all kinds of excuses for why the book is true anyway. Moroni's promise, like all of the church's promises, is set up to be unfalsifiable.
The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 amid no small controversy. Since then it's been translated into scores of languages and printed in hundreds of millions of copies. Apologists point out many details and parallels that they see as evidences of ancient origin; see "Is There Any Evidence for the Book of Mormon?" and "The Book of Mormon Challenge" for more information. Three witnesses - Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris - testified that an angel had shown them the golden plates, while eight additional witnesses testified that Joseph had shown them. None of them ever denied this. On the other hand, it contains many anachronisms according to current knowledge, and one of the most respected LDS scholars, Richard Bushman, has stated "that there is phrasing everywhere - long phrases that if you google them you will find them in 19th century writings. The theology of the Book of Mormon is very much 19th century theology, and it reads like a 19th century understanding of the Hebrew Bible as an Old Testament. That is, it has Christ in it the way Protestants saw Christ everywhere in the Old Testament. That’s why we now call it 'Hebrew Bible' because the Jews never saw it quite that way. So, these are all problems we have to deal with." Even the basic premise of the book, a mythical origin story for Native Americans, is rooted in the racist nineteenth-century belief that the ancient mounds throughout North America were built by an advanced white race before the darker-skinned "savages" wiped them out.
The biggest selling point of the book is Moroni 10:4, near the end, which states, "And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost." The LDS Church claims that this will usually happen through a warm or peaceful feeling, indistinguishable from the "spiritual witnesses" felt in every religion - but if no such feeling comes, it has all kinds of excuses for why the book is true anyway. Moroni's promise, like all of the church's promises, is set up to be unfalsifiable.
The LDS Church further claims that if the Book of Mormon is true, the entire church is also true. Hence Joseph Smith described it as "the keystone of our religion." This line of thinking kept me in the church for a long time despite my cognitive dissonance over its many problems. But members of any of the tiny offshoot groups that also believe in the Book of Mormon would dispute it, as did one of the three witnesses, David Whitmer. He was excommunicated in 1837. In his 1887 pamphlet An Address to All Believers in Christ, he reaffirmed his testimony of the Book of Mormon but argued at great length that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet and the mainstream LDS Church was in apostasy. He pointed out, as many critics have since, that most unique LDS beliefs and practices are not contained in the Book of Mormon and were introduced by Joseph Smith later. Yet Latter-day Saints believe that it contains "the fulness of the gospel."
Doctrine and Covenants
The Doctrine and Covenants, originally called the Book of Commandments, is a compilation of alleged revelations received by Joseph Smith and a couple other prophets regarding how to run the church, and a few other miscellanea such as an account of the murders of Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. It includes an official declaration from 1890 that partially ended the practice of polygamy and another from 1978 that ended the priesthood and temple ban on members of African descent. The "doctrine" portion of the title refers to the Lectures on Faith (attributed to Joseph Smith but probably written by Sidney Rigdon), which were decanonized and removed in 1921 because they contradict the church's later teachings in some respects. For example, they claim that the Godhead only contains two persons, the Father and the Son, and that the Father is a personage of spirit. The edition of the D&C used by the LDS Church today contains 138 sections plus the two declarations and hasn't been added to since 1981. The Community of Christ (formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) adds to its edition with more regularity and now has 165 sections. The LDS Church has added many policies and structural changes that aren't included in the D&C. Its operations nowadays are rooted far more in the non-scriptural General Handbook.
Because the Saints' printing press in Missouri was destroyed by a mob in 1833, few members had access to copies of the Book of Commandments. When Joseph Smith compiled the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835, he substantially revised and added to several of the revelations. The book's current introduction claims, "Joseph and the early Saints viewed the revelations as they did the Church: living, dynamic, and subject to refinement with additional revelation." This is a modern post facto paradigm. It's more likely that most of the early Saints didn't even know about the changes, and it's documented that some who did know had a problem with them. David Whitmer used them as evidence that Joseph was a fallen prophet. For example, he pointed out that the Book of Commandments read, "And he (Joseph) has a gift to translate the Book [of Mormon] and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift." In the Doctrine and Covenants Joseph changed this passage to, "And you have a gift to translate the plates, and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you, and I have commanded you that you should pretend to no other gift, until my purpose is fulled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished." Whitmer argued, "God does not change and work in this manner. The way this revelation has been changed, twenty-two words being added to it, it would appear that God had broken His word after giving His word in plainness..."
Because the Saints' printing press in Missouri was destroyed by a mob in 1833, few members had access to copies of the Book of Commandments. When Joseph Smith compiled the Doctrine and Covenants in 1835, he substantially revised and added to several of the revelations. The book's current introduction claims, "Joseph and the early Saints viewed the revelations as they did the Church: living, dynamic, and subject to refinement with additional revelation." This is a modern post facto paradigm. It's more likely that most of the early Saints didn't even know about the changes, and it's documented that some who did know had a problem with them. David Whitmer used them as evidence that Joseph was a fallen prophet. For example, he pointed out that the Book of Commandments read, "And he (Joseph) has a gift to translate the Book [of Mormon] and I have commanded him that he shall pretend to no other gift, for I will grant him no other gift." In the Doctrine and Covenants Joseph changed this passage to, "And you have a gift to translate the plates, and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you, and I have commanded you that you should pretend to no other gift, until my purpose is fulled in this; for I will grant unto you no other gift until it is finished." Whitmer argued, "God does not change and work in this manner. The way this revelation has been changed, twenty-two words being added to it, it would appear that God had broken His word after giving His word in plainness..."
The Pearl of Great Price
The Pearl of Great Price is the smallest and most neglected of the standard works. It doesn't have a year of Seminary or Sunday school devoted to it, though it is used in conjunction with the Old Testament. It includes the book of Moses, an expansion and revision from the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis; the book of Abraham, inspired by Egyptian papyrus that came into Joseph Smith's possession; the Joseph Smith Translation of Matthew 23:29 and 24; Chapters 1 through 5 of History of the Church Volume 1, which tell part of Joseph Smith's story; and the thirteen Articles of Faith, which lay out some of the LDS Church's basic beliefs as explained by Joseph Smith to a curious newspaper editor. Children are often encouraged to memorize the Articles of Faith. They are the closest thing the church has to a formal creed.
The Book of Abraham was written by Joseph Smith after purchasing some Egyptian papyri, and includes some facsimiles from them, the only pictures in the scriptures. In 1912, Episcopal Reverend Spalding in Utah solicited the opinions of several respected Egyptologists who said that the facsimiles had nothing to do with Abraham and everything Smith wrote about their meaning was wrong. Apologists have argued that Smith restored their original meaning or was divinely inspired with an interpretation different from the original. In 1966, fragments of the papyrus were found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after having been thought destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, and turned out to be common funerary texts with no connection to Abraham. Apologists have argued that Smith either translated from a portion of the papyrus scroll that we no longer have (unlikely) or simply used the papyrus as a catalyst to receive a revelation that had nothing to do with its contents. The Book of Abraham is also the source of some of the "weird" LDS teachings. In a couple of chapters God tells Abraham some interesting and vague things about astronomy and the universe, such as his location near a star called Kolob. The major takeaway is that God's creations are endless and that he's located in a tangible location in space. I don't believe in the Book of Abraham, but the hymn "If You Could Hie to Kolob" is still a banger.
The Book of Abraham was written by Joseph Smith after purchasing some Egyptian papyri, and includes some facsimiles from them, the only pictures in the scriptures. In 1912, Episcopal Reverend Spalding in Utah solicited the opinions of several respected Egyptologists who said that the facsimiles had nothing to do with Abraham and everything Smith wrote about their meaning was wrong. Apologists have argued that Smith restored their original meaning or was divinely inspired with an interpretation different from the original. In 1966, fragments of the papyrus were found at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after having been thought destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire, and turned out to be common funerary texts with no connection to Abraham. Apologists have argued that Smith either translated from a portion of the papyrus scroll that we no longer have (unlikely) or simply used the papyrus as a catalyst to receive a revelation that had nothing to do with its contents. The Book of Abraham is also the source of some of the "weird" LDS teachings. In a couple of chapters God tells Abraham some interesting and vague things about astronomy and the universe, such as his location near a star called Kolob. The major takeaway is that God's creations are endless and that he's located in a tangible location in space. I don't believe in the Book of Abraham, but the hymn "If You Could Hie to Kolob" is still a banger.
