Documents, Volume 5, Part 1 Introduction: 2 October–1 December 1835
Part 1: 2 October–1 December 1835
In fall 1835, the township of , Ohio, was bustling with activity. Already home
to approximately one thousand church members, it continued to absorb
migrants almost daily. Some were new converts seeking to gather with
the Latter-day Saints, while others were elders assembling for the
1835–1836 session of the Elders School. Work on the
continued. With the central structure
of the edifice largely completed by early fall, masons began
applying plaster to the exterior and interior walls in early
November.
Commercial activity was on the rise, facilitated by mercantile firms
operated by church members. Having recently published the Doctrine
and Covenants, the church’s continued to disseminate ecclesiastical
instruction and church-related news in periodicals such as the
Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, and
the printers were preparing the church’s first hymnbook for publication.
As he oversaw these and many other efforts, JS continued to counsel church
members and establish and explain doctrine through letters, sermons,
and revelations. In a series of three letters printed in successive issues of the
Messenger and Advocate, he expounded on doctrinal
matters, provided specific instruction to missionaries, and
responded to claims made by critics of the church. In a 23 October
prayer, JS and other church leaders pleaded for relief
from financial debts and for assistance in redeeming Zion.
JS also continued to direct the church broadly and counsel or
comfort its members individually through revelations, ten of which
he dictated from mid-October to mid-November. A revelation dated 18 October prophesied that the sickness
and distress experienced by church members would
be mitigated; another, more personal revelation assured JS that his pregnant sister-in-law
, who was
“confined an[d] in a verry dangerous situation,” would deliver a
healthy child.
Throughout this period, JS also received dozens of visitors. Many
came to examine the Egyptian antiquities that JS and others had
purchased from traveling exhibitor in July, while
others, such as and , came to “enquire concerning the faith” of
the Latter-day Saints, “having heard many reports.”
As church members worked to finish the , JS prepared members
of the church’s lay ministry to receive a promised endowment of
power by urging sanctification and unity. On 5 October, he advised the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles that it was the will of God that they attend the “solemn
assembly of the first Elders for the organization of the School of
the prophets, and attend to the ordinence of the washing of feet and
to prepare their hearts in all humility for an endowment with power
from on high.”
Instruction sometimes included correction and chastisement. A 3 November
revelation reproved the Quorum of the Twelve and commanded
them to “repent speedily and prepare their hearts for the solem
assembly and for the great day which is to come.”
Nine days later, JS urged the Twelve to prepare themselves for the
ritual of foot washing, which he told them was “calculated to unite
our hearts, that we may be one in feeling and sentiment and that our
faith may be strong.”
While organizing the Elders School in early November, he stressed
the necessity of “our rightly improving our time and reigning up our
minds to a sense of the great object that lies before us, viz, that
glorious endowment that God has in store for the faithful.”
After purchasing ’s collection of mummies
and papyri in early July, JS and several
associates devoted time to two separate but related endeavors during
the fall: the translation of what would later be referred to as the
Book of Abraham, and a language-study effort that produced a number
of Egyptian alphabet and grammar manuscripts. Church
leaders’ interest in ancient languages developed during a period
when intellectuals were trying to uncover the origins of human
language; Christian scholars in particular were interested in
reviving the study of biblical languages like Hebrew and
Aramaic. Though the arrival
of the papyri in 1835 surely piqued JS’s and others’ interest in the
Egyptian language, the translation of the ancient records and
production of papyri-related texts—such as the Book of Abraham manuscript and the “Egyptian
alphabet” that are featured in this
section—were part of an abiding interest JS and his associates took
in ancient languages and extra-biblical religious texts, an interest
that extended back more than half a decade. JS reported that during
the years 1828 and 1829, he translated the Book of
Mormon from gold plates engraved in a language referred to
as “reformed Egyptian.” While
working on a revision of the Bible in 1830, JS added a passage to
Genesis that referenced Adam passing down a “book of remembrance” so
that his children could be taught in a language “which was pure
& undefiled.” Two years later, JS dictated a document that revealed and defined some words from the
“pure language” of God.
Interest in ancient languages persisted into the mid-1830s;
in late May 1835, penned a
letter to his wife, , that
included six characters that he classified as “a specimen of some of
the ‘pure language.’”
News of JS’s translation of the papyri
generated excitement and curiosity among many Latter-day Saints
during the summer and fall of 1835.
Sometime in late 1835, produced
a document that featured several unknown characters paired with what
appear to be translations; later copied and identified them as “characters
on the book of Mormon.”
The existence of these character documents, along with ’s sample of the pure
language, suggests that JS and his associates were experimenting
with various kinds of language study during this period. JS,
Phelps, Cowdery, Williams, ,
and others began working with Egyptian characters from the papyri in
summer 1835, and later that year they also began to study and
translate Hebrew as a way to “understand his [the Lord’s] word in
the original language.”
They commenced an informal study of Hebrew during the early fall,
which later led to a more systematic study of the language under
noted Hebraist .
The transcription, translation, and study of Egyptian characters
undertaken by JS, Cowdery, Williams, Phelps, and Parrish likely
overlapped with their informal study of Hebrew during the fall of
1835.