What Is the Book of Moses?

In the summer of 1830, Joseph Smith dictated a text to Oliver Cowdery that would eventually become Smith’s Bible revision project, also known as the Joseph Smith Translation of the Holy Bible. The first 23 pages would become familiar to Latter-day Saints as the Book of Moses. But many Latter-day Saints may not be aware that the entire revision project bears the marks of seven individuals, spans almost 450 manuscript pages, and includes marginalia found in an 1828 printed Bible. Between June 1830, when Smith first dictated “Visions of Moses,” and 2 July 1833, when Frederick G. Williams wrote “Finished” on the last page, four separate manuscripts were created, sometimes referred to by scholars as Old Testament Manuscript 1 (OT1), Old Testament Manuscript 2 (OT2), New Testament Manuscript 1 (NT1), and New Testament Manuscript 2 (NT2).

How did the first eight chapters of that larger work become canonized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as the Book of Moses? Answering this question requires us to examine printing history from the period.

Joseph Smith and others desired to print the full Bible revision manuscript—they even made a scriptural or topical index to the manuscript—but the work was never published during Smith’s life. Following his death, this full collection of manuscripts remained in the possession of his wife Emma Hale Smith. Friend of the Smith family John Bernhisel made a partial copy of the manuscript and carried it with him to Utah, but by and large, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, under the leadership of Brigham Young, had access only to chapters published in church publications in the 1830s and 1840s.

Today’s Book of Moses appears scattered across these early publications. In August 1832, the church’s newspaper, The Evening and the Morning Star, published “Extract from the Prophecy of Enoch,” containing what is known today as Moses 6:43–68 and 7:1–69. Then in 1843, a different church newspaper, Times and Seasons, published “History of Joseph Smith,” which contained “A Revelation to Joseph Smith, jun. given June, 1830”—or what is now known as Moses 1. The second Lecture on Faith, part of the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, included portions of chapters 5 and 8. After the British periodical The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star published chapters 2 and 3 of present-day Moses, along with most of chapter 4, Franklin D. Richards compiled each of these selections and reprinted them in the first edition of the Pearl of Great Price, published as a 56-page pamphlet in England in 1851.

Limited availability was a driving force to publish what is now known as the Book of Moses. In the published pamphlet, Richards told his readers that “most of the Revelations composing this work were published at early periods of the Church, when the circulation of its journals was so very limited as to render them comparatively unknown at present.” Richards also stated that “true believers in the Divine mission of the Prophet Joseph Smith, will appreciate this little collection of precious truths.”

In 1878, the second edition of the Pearl of Great Price was published with the full Book of Moses as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints know it today. In 1880, the church voted to canonize the Pearl of Great Price, and it is now one of the four standard works of the church’s scriptural canon.

Today, readers can browse a conveniently packaged book of scripture with little thought for the efforts of the many scribes, editors, printers, and publishers who brought this work to fruition. The publication and canonization of the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price has obscured its long, complex history as it was dictated by Joseph Smith, preserved by his family, published by prescient leaders, and treasured by church members from the founding period to the present.