The Book Of Moses And The Joseph Smith Translation Manuscripts

by Kent P. Jackson

Discover the history and doctrine presented in the Book of Moses

Just two months after the Church was organized, the Lord directed Joseph Smith to read the bible carefully and correct it by revelation. The Book of Moses, as it now appears in the Pearl of Great Price, was the first written material to emerge from the inspired effort. In this volume, Kent P. Jackson reproduces the text of the Book of Moses as the Prophe3t left it for publication. He also provides an introductory history to provide background for your in-depth study of the text. Remarkably, some of the changes have never been printed because of confusion over which manuscript to use. A must-read for those who want to understand how the scriptures came to be.

Genres: Religion

180 pages, Hardcover

First published February 1, 2005

About the author

Kent P. Jackson is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University. He was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, and graduated from BYU with a B.A. in ancient studies. He then earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in ancient Near Eastern studies from the University of Michigan. He joined the BYU faculty in 1980.

Dr. Jackson has two primary academic interests. The first is the intersection of the Bible and Latter-day Saint history and beliefs. The second is the Middle East—ancient, medieval, and modern. He is a former chair of Near Eastern Studies at the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies at BYU and former associate dean of Religious Education. He has been a faculty member at the BYU Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies five times.

Dr. Jackson has authored several books and articles. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, reading, and wildflower photography.

He and his wife, Nancy, live in Orem, Utah, and are the parents of five children and nine grandchildren.

Reviews

[Veiltender]

A clear and lucid discussion of the various textual families underscoring our present "Book of Moses." It actually serves as a good primer for thinking about text critical matters in general, since it discusses the difficulties inherent in copying texts, even within a few months or years after their creation. This made me think about the transmission of ancient texts.

If you are interested in the Pearl of Great Price or the Joseph Smith Translation, this book is definitely worth reading. It is also worth reading if you want to see an example of the process of textual transmission in action.

[Karl Tenney]

Interesting. Very interesting.

[Charity (Charity's Library)]

This was actually a pretty small book but WOW i made so many notes! There is a lot contained in this book that i did not know before so I definitely recommend picking it up!

[Doug]

Provides a clear picture of where the Book of Moses came from, what has been changed in it through the years, and to some degree why. The last section of the book provides a manuscript of the book of Moses based on OT1 and OT2 , as left by Joseph Smith on his death. Since these were among his private papers they stayed with Emma and ended up in the RLDS church's keeping. They did not come to light again until relatively recently (2004 if memory serves). It was a short, but good read that made me look at this part of The Pearl of Great Price in a different light.

[Ernie Dawson]

Basically a comparison of "all" manuscripts of the Book of Moses. In the end the author presents a coherent manuscript which sometimes differs from what we have in the Pearl of Great Price.