Hello Friends!
I should have the entire D&C finished within the week but it seemed like I should update everyone more quickly so here is the link to the 1844 version of D&C 1-100 with all textual changes marked.
As per previous updates, I did modern punctuation only for the first 18 sections or so. After that, all punctuation is original. I’ll be publishing a raw, original version with some friends soon. I’ll be publishing a more polished version shortly thereafter with more extensive annotations in preparation for my final D&C Annotated with Commentary Series.
Previously, I shared some of my broad observations in editing the D&C by comparing every manuscript version for every section of the D&C. I only have two things that come to mind presently that are worth repeating now that I’ve provided twice as much material:
Without reviewing each change again (I’ll be doing that before publication), I would posit that every substantive change to the text of the D&C 1-100 (made in Joseph’s lifetime) was made in 1835 or before. That’s really quite a huge claim, but I think it’s accurate. I’ll keep you updated on this issue. I don’t think he made a single substantive change in sections 1-100 in 1844 or after 1835 (other than offering the names to code names, which I don’t consider a substantive revision - that’s more of an administrative revision from my perspective). This is extremely significant because the historical record is very unclear as to whether Joseph had much oversight to the changes Oliver Cowdery made in 1835. The same is essentially true of 1844 as well, despite the front page declaration. It could be that Joseph was carefully involved or it could be that Oliver Cowdery wrote that without Joseph’s permission as he made other massive changes without Joseph’s permission. The historical record itself shows Joseph too busy dealing with other things to carefully oversee what the editors were doing. Therefore, for those who believe the changes were not inspired, all of those 1835 changes are problematic and merited Orson Pratt’s heavy rebuke against those who made changes to the scriptures without proper oversight (although that rebuke was issued in 1833). On the other hand, to those who believe Joseph was indeed heavily involved in the revisions of the scriptures, all of those 1835 changes are worthy of careful review and prayer.
The team of editors working on the 1835 and 1844 editions of the D&C made a mess of things. Some made helpful grammatical changes, some made it worse and potentially changed the meaning. Some modernized the Old English accurately, some did not, some were inconsistent. Most everyone improved the spelling in 1844 but they were unitedly inconsistent there as well. This probably only merited two footnotes because the mistakes were generally trivial or obvious. The punctuation is so bad that it’s essentially meaningless in the vast majority of instances. I expanded upon this in a previous post so I’ll ignore that here.
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I published the audiobook of Joseph Smith’s Doctrines & Insights: The Forgotten Teachings. Changing Ordinances, Losing Priesthood? will soon be available for purchase here. It is already available on Substack for paid subscribers. I’ll begin Joseph Smith’s Doctrines & Insights: The Last Charge and Transfiguration next.
Further, I’m now selling digital versions of both the D&C Annotated with Commentary series and Joseph Smith’s Doctrine & Insights series here. Payhip doesn’t retain the same high percentage of sales as Amazon so more of those sales go toward helping keep this project moving.
Take care and God bless!